In a filing made on March 31 with the US District Court for the Southern District of New York concerning the case against James Zhong, it was stated that authorities from the United States government had started liquidating approximately 51,352 Bitcoin (BTC) that had been seized in connection with the Ulbricht case. According to the document, on March 14, government officials sold approximately 9,861 Bitcoins for more than $215 million, retaining almost 41,491 BTC to be sold later.

US To Sell Silk Road Bitcoin

The filing further revealed that the government intended to off-load the remaining 41K BTC in four separate lots throughout the course of this calendar year. Considering Bitcoin’s price at the time of writing, this sale would translate to roughly $1.2 billion in favor of the US government.

Read More: Bitcoin’s Price Flashes Buy Signal, Is $35,000 In Sight?

According to the court filing, the United States government was quoted as saying:

The Government understands [that the Bitcoin] is expected to be liquidated in four more batches over the course of this calendar year.

Zhong entered a guilty plea in November on accusations of committing wire fraud in conspiring a plot to steal bitcoins from Silk Road in the year 2012. However, in November 2021, law enforcement officials from the United States raided his residence in Georgia and confiscated more than 50,000 BTC, which was reportedly worth over $3 billion at the time.

Markets Spooked By Revelation

In light of this news, crypto traders and market participants became slightly concerned after seeing that US authorities transferred over $200 million worth of bitcoin to Coinbase earlier this month. With the US planning to offload an additional 41K Bitcoins along with the Mt.Gox repayments slated to be disbursed this year — the crypto market anticipates mounting sell pressure for the flagship cryptocurrency.

As things stand, the price of BTC is currently exchanging hands at $28,334 which represents an increase of 2.02% over the past 24 hours in comparison to a gain of 2.51% recorded over the previous seven days.

Also Read: Top Mastercard-Backed Blockchain App Migrates To Hedera; Is HBAR Price Gunning For $1?

Pratik has been a crypto evangelist since 2016 & been through almost all that crypto has to offer. Be it the ICO boom, bear markets of 2018, Bitcoin halving to till now – he has seen it all.

The presented content may include the personal opinion of the author and is subject to market condition. Do your market research before investing in cryptocurrencies. The author or the publication does not hold any responsibility for your personal financial loss.

Coinbase v. Bielski was filed by California resident Abraham Bielski, who lost over $31,000 after being targeted by a scammer who purported to be a PayPal representative and accessed Bielski’s Coinbase account. Bielski claimed Coinbase provided little help in regaining the lost funds and accused Coinbase of violating the Electronic Funds Transfer Act and Regulation E therein.

Cryptocurrency Dogecoin is increasingly being connected to illicit activity like terrorism financing and child sex abuse, according to a new study. 

Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, who authored the report, claimed it had found evidence to suggest that the popular meme token was being used by illicit actors as payment for illegal activity. 

Dogecoin was accepted as payment by a number of child sex abuse material vendors online, the report alleged. 

While the amount of identified Dogecoin payments used by child sex abuse material vendors is relatively low at $3,000 (£2,443) globally, “the fact that the Dogecoin adoption trend has reached this community further demonstrates the appetite for criminal actors to adopt a wide range of cryptoassets in a bid to avoid notice,” Elliptic’s report said.

Last year, Israel’s National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing issued a seizure order against numerous cryptoasset addresses which were believed to be controlled by militant group Hamas, or otherwise used in terror-related activity. Dogecoin addresses were included in this and had received $40,235 (£32,765.37), according to the report.

Elliptic also identified multiple markets on the darknet markets that accept Dogecoin as payment, such as those selling drugs and stolen data. 

Far-right extremist groups have also utilized Dogecoin, turning to cryptocurrencies when excluded from traditional methods of finance, Elliptic noted. It found that numerous far-right entities have used Dogecoin to raise funds, including far-right website Infowars, which has so far raised more than $1700 (£1383) in Dogecoin. 

Dogecoin has notably been promoted by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who said on Sunday he still supports and buys the token.

Dogecoin founders, Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, have become quite critical of the crypto space since they launched the coin in 2013. In an interview with Australian TV show The Project on Monday, Palmer compared cryptocurrencies to a “house of cards” and said some cards at the bottom have “started to crumble.”

Markus and Palmer did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the report.