Supreme Court clears $4.4B Silk Road Bitcoin sale

The United States Supreme Court has declined to hear a case involving the ownership of 69,370 Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC) seized from the Silk Road marketplace, clearing the way for the U.S. government to sell the $4.4 billion in assets.  

Battle Born Investments, which brought the case, claimed it had purchased rights to the Bitcoin through a bankruptcy estate. 

The firm argued that the Bitcoin belonged to Raymond Ngan, whom they believed to be "Individual X," the person who stole the cryptocurrency from Silk Road.  

In 2022, a federal court in California ruled against Battle Born, finding no evidence that Ngan was "Individual X."  

The following year, the ruling was upheld by a federal appeals court in San Francisco.  

With the Supreme Court’s decision to not hear the case, the government now faces few barriers to selling the seized Bitcoin.  

As Twitter user @ErgoBTC commented, “In the never-ending ‘Silk Road’ USG BTC news, Battleborn Investment’s appeal to the Supreme Court will not be heard and the 69k BTC forfeited by Individual X moves from the seized bucket to the forfeited and sellable bucket.”  

In the past few months, the U.S. government has been moving large amounts of Bitcoin linked to Silk Road.  

During July and August, it transferred approximately $2.6 billion worth of Bitcoin to new wallets.  

These transfers are typically made in preparation for selling the assets.  

However, it’s also possible that Coinbase Prime, which has a custody deal with the U.S. Marshals Service, is simply holding the assets for the government.  

As governments continue to sell large amounts of seized cryptocurrency, concerns over market volatility have risen.  

The debate over what to do with the funds has even entered the political arena.  

In July, former President Donald Trump announced that if re-elected, his administration would hold onto all the Bitcoin the U.S. government seizes.  

“I am announcing that if I am elected, it will be the policy of my administration...to keep 100% of all the Bitcoin the U.S. government currently holds or acquires into the future,” Trump said at a crypto conference in Nashville.  

At press time, the Bitcoin price was $63,298.43.