Earlier this week, bitcoin community shocked when it emptied a digital wallet containing about $ 1 billion in bitcoin. That particular wallet believed to have come from the Silk Road drug market, and was emptied by an unknown person. But eventually those responsible for transferring the funds were revealed: it was the US government.
The Ministry of Justice he said on Thursday that it acquired the contents of the wallet (approximately 70.000 bitcoin) with the help of an anonymous hacker, whose identity is known to the government, but is simply referred to as "Individual X" in court documents.
Το “Individual X” φέρεται να παραβίασε το σύστημα πληρωμών του Silk Road κάποια στιγμή το 2012 ή το 2013. Η κυβέρνηση αναφέρει ότι ο δημιουργός του Silk Road, Ross Ulbricht, ο οποίος εκτίει επί του παρόντος διπλή ισόβια κάθειρξη + 40 χρόνια για τον ρόλο του στον ιστότοπο, “απείλησε το Individual X για την επιστροφή του coins”, αλλά ο άγνωστος hacker αρνήθηκε. Στις 3 Νοεμβρίου, το Individual X συμφώνησε να παραδώσει τα bitcoin στην κυβέρνηση των ΗΠΑ και βοήθησε στη μεταφορά των χρημάτων. Δεν είναι σαφές εάν το άτομο αυτό συνελήφθη ή πώς επιτεύχθηκε η cooperation.
In a press statement, US Attorney David L. Anderson cited the business as a great success of the government.
"The successful prosecution of the founder of Silk Road in 2015 left a question of billions of dollars. Where did the money go? ”
Silk Road was "the most sophisticated criminal market" on the Internetnetwork, the Justice Department said, and operated from 2011 to 2013, before being taken offline by the FBI. The US government estimates that the site generated about 600.000 bitcoins during that time. About 175.000 of them were confiscated when Ulbricht was arrested and the site was shut down in October 2013.
The Justice Department has not said what it plans to do with 1 billion dollars, but in the past he auctioned them off.