Senator Cynthia Lummis’s inquiry into the handling of Bitcoin seized from the Silk Road darknet market has been met with silence from the U.S. Marshals Service. The Marshals missed a January 31st deadline to respond to her questions.
The Missing Millions (or Billions)
Lummis’s letter demanded answers about the amount of Bitcoin held, the planned disposition of the coins, and the management protocols in place. She highlighted a significant loss in potential value. The Marshals reportedly sold approximately 195,092 Bitcoin between 2014 and 2023 for roughly $366.5 million. At current prices, those same coins would be worth over $18.9 billion—a potential loss of over $18.5 billion for taxpayers.
The Silk Road Context
This all stems from the 2013 seizure of hundreds of thousands of Bitcoin from Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road. While Ulbricht’s double life sentence was recently commuted, the Bitcoin forfeiture remains unaffected.
Silence from the Marshals
As of now, the U.S. Marshals Service has not publicly responded to Senator Lummis’s concerns. The situation leaves many questions unanswered about the government’s handling of cryptocurrency assets.
(Note: Bitcoin’s price at the time of writing is mentioned in the original article but omitted here as it’s a volatile and rapidly changing data point.)
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