Victorian police confiscated the bitcoins as proceeds of crime, although only registered bidders will find out who from Auctioneers expect strong interest in the auction of 24,518 bitcoins, each of which is currently valued at about $530.Photograph: Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images Victorian police confiscated the bitcoins as proceeds of crime, although only registered bidders will find out who from About $13m in bitcoins will be auctioned in Sydney in June after Victorian police confiscated the digital currency as proceeds of crime.Ernst & Young is running the process, which is only the second such bitcoin auction in the world after the US Marshals Service sold 144,000 bitcoins over a two-year period that had been confiscated from Ross Ulbricht, who founded the online drug bazaar Silk Road, the accountancy firm’s transaction partner, Adam Nikitins, said.Based on Tuesday’s single bitcoin price of $533.80, the cache of cryptocurrency is valued at almost $13.1m.Nikitins expects strong interest in the auction since the bitcoin price has become less volatile after the US auctions.

Ernst & Young has received expressions of interest from the United States, Europe and Australia, he said.“Over the last few months, the price of bitcoins has been steadily rising and the volatility has gone out of it,” Nikitins said.Nikitins would not say who the bitcoins were confiscated from, but said registered bidders would be told.The Victoria state government has confirmed that it seized about 24,500 bitcoins in late 2013 from a Melbourne drug dealer.Richard Pollard, 32, was sentenced in the Melbourne county court in October to 11 years in prison after pleading guilty to drug trafficking on the Silk Road website.The haul of bitcoins will be mostly sold in lots of about 2,000.Bitcoin is a digital currency that allows people to buy goods and services and exchange money without involving banks, credit card issuers or other third parties.The coins are created by users who “mine” them by lending computing power to verify other users’ transactions, receiving bitcoins in exchange.

Bitcoins also can be bought and sold on exchanges with US dollars and other currencies.Their value has fluctuated over time.At its height in late 2013, a single bitcoin was valued above $1,100.Bidders can register until 7 June for the 24,518 bitcoins on offer.The 48-hour sealed auction will take place from 20 June.Join our Telegram Channel!Get Bitcoin News stories in Telegram × DismissThe US Marshals Service (USMS) is set to auction off 2,700 BTC worth just over $1.6m next month.The agency said in a statement today that the bitcoins being sold are connected to a number of criminal and civil cases that have been pursued by the US government in recent years.These include bitcoins from cases involving former federal agent Carl Force IV and convicted Silk Road administrator Ross Ulbricht, as well as bitcoins confiscated by the US Department of Homeland Security; the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco; and the Internal Revenue Service.The auction will consist of one block, with a $100,000 deposit required.

The registration deadline is 18th August, and the auction will take place between 13:00 and 19:00 UTC on 22nd August.bitcoin predictions redditWinners will be notified on that day, according to the USMS.bitcoin hyip programsThe auction is the first USMS sale of the digital currency to take place this year, and one of several conducted by the agency in the past two years.genuine bitcoin earning sitesMany of the bitcoins previously auctioned were tied to the investigation into the Silk Road dark market.bitcoin tax thailandEarlier this year, a tranche of roughly 24,500 BTC was auctioned off by Ernst & Young after it had been confiscated from a former Silk Road user.ethereum stock review

Federal marshal image via Shutterstock The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is an independent media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies.ethereum safeA collection of bitcoins worth about £8m, which had been confiscated by police in Australia, will be auctioned off in June.The 24,518 bitcoins will be sold mostly in blocks of 2,000 - each with a market value of about £680,000.Ernst & Young, the firm organising the auction, said the bitcoins had been "confiscated as proceeds of crime" but did not elaborate on the case.One expert said the authorities had chosen a "safe" time to sell.Australian newspapers have previously reported that 24,500 bitcoins were seized by police in the state of Victoria in 2013, after a man was arrested for dealing illegal drugs online.In 2015, Victoria's Asset Confiscation Operations department "confirmed it had recently taken possession of 24,500 coins and would try to make the most of it", according to the Sydney Morning Herald."This

is a significant amount of Bitcoin," Dr Garrick Hileman, economic historian at the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, told the BBC."It's about a week's worth of new Bitcoin that comes onto the market through mining."Currentlyabout 4,000 new bitcoins are generated a day, as a reward for "miners" who offer their computer power to process Bitcoin transactions.The seized coins are auctioned in blocks because quickly selling a large number of coins for cash at a Bitcoin exchange could negatively affect the market."Generallythe view is that any time 10,000 bitcoins sell, the market price can be moved significantly," said Dr Hileman.The price of Bitcoin rose to $530 (£362) on Friday, its highest level since August 2014.Dr Hileman said the Australian authorities had chosen a "safe" time to sell because there is some uncertainty about what will happen to the value of Bitcoin in July."TheBitcoin protocol is designed to reduce the number of new bitcoins miners are given as a reward for processing transactions every four years."The

reward will be halved on 14 July, so prices could go up due to the reduced supply of new bitcoins."Butthere is a question about whether security could decline, if rewards for miners are reduced significantly.So it's a safe time to sell, as there is no guarantee about what might happen in July."TheAustralian Bitcoin auction, which will be open to bidders worldwide, is the first such sale outside of the US.In 2014, the US Marshals Service began auctioning a collection of about 175,000 bitcoins that had been confiscated from the founder of internet marketplace Silk Road.The final auction of those bitcoins attracted 11 bidders, possibly due to the high cost of each block on sale.Dr Hileman said the sale of Bitcoin by the Australian authorities was an acknowledgement that the cryptocurrency was not illegal."Anytime a government sells Bitcoin, it is acknowledging that this is a different asset to drugs, for example, that would not be sold in an auction," he told the BBC."Thatwas one of the big takeaways from the US Marshal Service auction - they set a precedent that Bitcoin was not illegal."Australia