A federal judge has approved the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to sell 69,370 Bitcoin, worth around $6.5 billion, which was confiscated from the Silk Road, a darknet marketplace.
The decision, made on December 30, ends a long legal fight over who owns the seized Bitcoin. Battle Born Investments, a group claiming ownership through a bankruptcy case, had tried to delay the sale but lost. They also failed to uncover the identity of “Individual X,” the person who originally surrendered the Bitcoin.
Battle Born’s attorney criticized the DOJ, calling the decision “an abuse of the Civil Asset Forfeiture process” and accusing the government of using legal loopholes to avoid a full review of the case.
The DOJ argued that Bitcoin’s price volatility made it important to sell the assets quickly. A spokesperson stated they will act according to the court’s decision.
The seized Bitcoin was taken from Silk Road, an online marketplace shut down in 2013 for illegal activities, including drug sales.
In his last press conference of the FOMC, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell stated that the Fed is “not allowed to own Bitcoin.”
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