All those national banks holding U.S. bonds as exchange reserves, and to have the nation annually pay them a big part of tax money as interest, pay them off in a new crypto currency? Great idea, since a currency's value relative to other currencies varies but a currency does not earn interest. Pay them with a promise, since that's all the bonds are anyway.
The headline is a mid-item of a current report touching upon Dread Pirate Roberts, indirectly, as a one-time bit coin booster by forming an online community trading drugs with purchases paid online in bit coin. As oil props up the hegemony of the dollar, Pirate Robert's drug flows proped up bit coin. Something like that, as best as news has reached me.
Rumor has it Trump will pardon Ross Ulbricht, a/k/a Dread Pirate Roberts, after Roberts was snatched by the feds out of a library where he was communicating online about bussiness matters - or that's the story.
But it is yesterday's story. Should he be pardoned, that is tomorrow's story.
Today's story carries this post. Ars Technica reporting -
Ashley Belanger –
That is a nice chunk of change for the feds to fall into without having to secretely promise Elon Musk anything. But shouldn't the feds, in wisdom, keep a bit coin reserve? And if they sell in one swoop on the critical national market, (yes, I mean bit coin, in jest), will not a transaction set of that amount prejudice the market? How should they manage things most prudently?
And a fair question - who did they get the bit coin trove from in first instance?
Ars helps there: They took it. Allegedly - not from Dread Pirate Roberts, but from one who took it from him who in the story is anonymous with unsure current whereabouts. A hacker, allegedly a private person, stole it online. And the feds, allegedly, well let Ars tell it -
At the end of 2024, a US court authorized the Department of Justice to sell 69,370 bitcoins from "the largest cryptocurrency seizure in history."
At bitcoin's current price, just under $92,000, these bitcoins are worth nearly $6.4 billion, and crypto outlets are reporting that DOJ officials have said they're planning to proceed with selling off the assets consistent with the court's order. The DOJ had reportedly argued that bitcoin's price volatility was a pressing reason to push for permission for the sale.
There is volatility, there is a change pending of occupancy of the White House. Two factors, not one. Ars continues -
Ars has reached out to the DOJ for comment and will update the story with any new information regarding next steps.
A hacker initially stole these bitcoins from Silk Road—an illegal online marketplace where goods could only be bought and sold with bitcoins—in 2012, shortly before the US government shut down the marketplace. The US later discovered the stolen bitcoins in 2020 while conducting further investigations of Silk Road, eventually securing a consent agreement that year from the hacker, who signed the bitcoins over to the government.
Emphasis added, not in original, Ars not using the word, "allegedly".
Whether the government's seizure of those bitcoins was proper has been disputed by Battle Born Investments, a company that purchased the assets of bankruptcy estate from an individual who they believed to be either the hacker whose bitcoins were seized or someone "associated with him."
Websearch = Battle Born Investments -- Make of that what you will. Here is where it gets interesting, not "allegedly," but damned actually -
After a court battle failed to return the bitcoins, Battle Born attempted to unmask the hacker through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, which sparked a new court fight. But ultimately, in late December, the court agreed with the US government that the hacker had a right to privacy as someone who was the subject of a criminal investigation and shouldn't be unmasked. That ended Battle Born's claim to the bitcoins and cleared the way for the government's sale.
Soon after the news dropped, bitcoin's price fell, which some outlets linked to speculation about the DOJ's sale and others to announced shifts in the Federal Reserve's monetary policy strategy and new Treasury Department data sparking inflation concerns.
If the sale is set in motion, it could affect the price of bitcoin. But perhaps more importantly, it could mess with Donald Trump's plans to establish a US bitcoin reserve.
In December, while the DOJ pushed for permission to sell the bitcoins, Trump confirmed a bitcoin reserve was needed, urging, "We're gonna do something great with crypto because we don’t want China, or anybody else … but others are embracing it, and we want to be ahead," Forbes reported.
Starting in July, Trump campaigned on being a "pro-crypto president," promising to loosen regulations and suggesting that cryptocurrency could be used to wipe out the US national debt.
Axios noted that Trump plans to build the US bitcoin reserve from cryptocurrencies seized in criminal investigations, so it wouldn't make sense to sell off the largest haul ever if he intends to take the US in that direction.
Analysts told Forbes that there's an estimated 60 percent chance that Trump will implement a bitcoin treasury reserve this year. And if that happens, bitcoin's price could jump significantly—perhaps as high as "$225,000 per coin by the end of 2025," they estimated. That forecast likely makes a sale even less appealing to pro-crypto regulators, who may see more value in stockpiling than selling.
Biden, acting quickly and by presidential order could sell off the shit before Trump takes office, and then what? Will Biden have a sporting mind and go do it?
Also, Ars seems to rely upon Forbes reporting with a derivative story, perhaps embellished, perhaps not, but seek out the original and see if you find any link to Forbes. Or to any court documents. The story's great, the evidential basis missing, as far as Ars reports.
Websearch = Forbes bit coin government sale seized hacker
Make of that what you will.
Crabgrass, reviewing that return list noted:
https://fortune.com/crypto/2025/01/09/federal-government-allowed-sell-bitcoin-silk-road-courts/
Adding to the haze of the story, Ars not linking, and dates of reporting posted in the return list, that Fortune item, not Forbes, has an annoying characteristic. Check it out, don't take my word about it.
So, story there, allegedly.
We wait. We see. Time is running, and only in one direction.
Crabgrass read Ars, and reports. Crabgrass leaves readers to their own ways and means, to take things from here to a more detailed resolution. It is best that way.
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Asset seizure laws, enacted against those doing crime, exists, warts and all. It has been criticized. It can create a governmental incentive to move in court, police forces being incentivized to act and seize, the defendant then left unable to finance a defense, relying instead of a lawyer, on a public defender. (That contention being itself an inflammatory statement.) Remember, but for the Warren Court, we'd not even have public defenders. Will Musk/Ramaswamy/DOGE actions affect our having them? Life is a continuing story. Was a magazine.
UPDATE: In the Ars story, there is a Forbes link, but . . .
A link to court papers would help, but Crabgrass lacks that and is disinclined to go web searching for a judicial link. The story is fine, as is.
FURTHER: Link to MSN coverage.
FURTHER: An unrelated crime situation reported in Time. One has to ask the question, with Trump touting crypto, and with the FBI developing ways of busting crypto crime and seizing millions in assets, is Kash Patel the man to be running the FBI? Not that Kash is unprincipled, which some assert, but is he smart enough, and will he be free enough? All future speculation, is, of course guessing. Nobody has an infallable crystal ball. Kash may be a perfect FBI head. But, maybe not.
When millions billions are on the table, Senate confirmation scrutiny should be appropriate to the amounts at risk. It's why the Constitution was worded as it stands. Founders had worry of wrong people being appointed. Even while founders had no FBI to be worried over. What would founder thought have been, original intent, were they faced with an overbearing federal police force - an anticipation of J. Edgar Hoover at his worse, files on everyone, and now the FBI as it exists?
FURTHER: Question: Dread Pirate Roberts/Ross Ulbricht surely gave crypto a kick upstairs via his Silk Road enterprise, so -- Will Trump pardon Ulbricht? What would that be saying, where crypto gave Trump a financial kick upstairs relative to the cash the Democrats were raising at the time from entertainment sources? Crypto and Musk/Silicon Valley gave Trump cash backing, (and gave him JD Vance). And with Vance, Haitian pet eating lore. Black people speaking French in the middle of Ohio. Eating Rover and Fluffy. Ones he could demonize. Fitting the agenda.
FURTHER: Actually Ars did post and link a court paper;
I was wrong. I did not read thoroughly before finding the item initially identified interesting enough to publish about. It was an error. In retrospect, I would have done differently.
FURTHER: Earlier Ars coverage - https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/07/judge-denies-silk-roads-demands-to-dismiss-criminal-prosecution/
There are perhaps others. It is only with Trump attention being a further indicator that bitcoin (not "bit coin" as previously written, but one word) is a financially serious thing. Earlier, Silk Road demonstrated it could be used to purchase goods, so that it was more than an idea or notion. Whether the nation should hold crypto reserves is a separate question from whether bitcoin or other crypto is or is not currency or money. If you can exchange it for goods, that means something. Whether Trump's beliefs in a national crypto reserve holding is wise or not is also apart from the government seizure and sale of bitcoins in particular instances.
The story is intriguing, but marginal to most politics now in the news. E.g., the extent of H-1B employment in crypto might matter, but is not getting much media attention.
Let it be.
FURTHER: Ars, here, described Ulbricht's trial after it had concluded, with links to other Ars coverage. It was Tor and blockchain in use, for a while, ultimately unsuccessfully. Is there an lesson, and if so, what lesson?
Ulbraicht has had years in prison already. Will Trump pardon or commute the sentence is a question only Trump can answer. Reasons why/why not are easy to formulate. What Trump will do is something we discover after he is given that authority. As with Jan 6 operatives.
Crabgrass has no strong feelings either way, and would have no strong feelings about whatever Trump does about Ulbricht. It is part of crypto history. Trump has embraced crypto, as have others. We shall see. Until then, again, let it be.