TechFlow news — On October 8, according to Decrypt, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a case concerning ownership of 69,370 bitcoins (worth approximately $4.4 billion), which are linked to the notorious dark web marketplace "Silk Road." This move appears to clear legal hurdles for the U.S. government to sell these seized cryptocurrency assets.
In 2022, a federal court in California rejected Battle Born Investments' claim to ownership of the bitcoins. The company had argued it acquired rights to the bitcoins through bankruptcy assets, but the court found it failed to prove that debtor Raymond Ngan was indeed the individual who stole the bitcoins from "Silk Road." In 2023, a federal appeals court in San Francisco upheld the lower court's ruling.
With the Supreme Court now refusing to review Battle Born's appeal, further legal progress in the case is effectively impossible. This means the obstacles to the government disposing of these funds have largely been removed. Previous reports indicated that between July and August this year, the U.S. government transferred approximately $2.6 billion worth of bitcoins into new wallets, potentially in preparation for sale.
