The U.S. government officially confiscated 69,370 Bitcoins stolen from the Silk Road, worth approximately RMB 21.8 billion.

Following the U.S. Department of Justice's seizure of 94,000 bitcoins stolen from the Bitfinex exchange, the U.S. court has now made a final ruling on another cryptocurrency case, supporting the U.S. government's confiscation of 69,370 bitcoins held by criminals. The source of the Bitcoin involved in this case is the darknet black market Silk Road, which has been sealed. The Silk Road has been destroyed by the FBI and Europol because it was involved in various criminal problems.

However, when Silk Road was still in operation in 2012 and 2013, hackers stole 69,370 Bitcoins by exploiting loopholes in the Silk Road trading system. The loophole in Silk Road at that time was that if a transaction was quickly initiated and canceled, Silk Road would return two transaction payments. Hackers used this method to steal a large number of Bitcoins.

After the problem was discovered by the founder and administrator of Silk Road, the black market administrator contacted the anonymous hacker and demanded that he return the funds or his online identity would be revealed.

However, in the end, the hacker did not return the funds and did not spend the Bitcoins. Instead, he kept holding them. The total number of problematic transactions was 54. The price of Bitcoin was still very low at that time, so the amount of Bitcoins required for each transaction was very high.

By November 3, 2020, U.S. law enforcement agencies seized the hacker’s Bitcoins involved in the case, and the hacker also signed a forfeiture consent and plea agreement with the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California. The hacker agreed to have the Bitcoins confiscated by the U.S. government, and the U.S. government subsequently took over the Bitcoins.

What followed was a lengthy legal process. In early August this year, the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a ruling declaring that the U.S. government could confiscate these Bitcoins.

As of Wednesday this week, the court signed an injunction that formally approved the US government's seizure of the 69,370 Bitcoins, and the case came to an end.

Based on the current Bitcoin price of US$44,000, these Bitcoins are worth approximately US$3.05228 billion, or approximately RMB 21.8 billion.

PS: The founder of Silk Road was arrested in a public library in San Francisco, USA, in October 2013. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2015 and is currently serving his sentence in a federal prison in the United States.