The official ruling in the Silk Road case was issued by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The court upheld the seizure of 69,370 BTC and other darknet-related cryptocurrencies.
The decision was originally made in August, but only now has been made official. The founder of #Silk Road, Ross Ulbricht, is facing charges and the plaintiff is the US government.
Recall that Ulbricht was arrested on October 2, 2013. In 2015, he was sentenced to two life terms and 40 years in prison without the possibility of parole.
It is interesting to note that Silk Road was hacked in 2012, but the culprit, James Chung, was not found until 10 years later. The U.S. Attorney's Office sentenced him to a year and a day in prison for charges related to the theft of over 51,680 bitcoins.
The assets stolen from the site were seized by U.S. authorities. Some of those funds were later transferred to #Coinbase accounts.
The #US government is one of the largest holders of bitcoins. It controls around 200,000 #BTC that were confiscated in various criminal cases. In addition, they also hold auctions to sell confiscated bitcoins.
