Recently, the U.S. Marshals Service obtained formal authorization to sell tens of thousands of bitcoins confiscated from the Silk Road dark web platform. The news caused the price of Bitcoin to fall from $64,000 to $61,000. It is reported that the United States will sell about $4.4 billion in bitcoins, which will become the largest sale of seized bitcoins in history, even exceeding the 50,000 bitcoins sold by Germany before.

Looking back at history, Silk Road, as a former dark web giant, had a large number of bitcoins confiscated after being destroyed by the U.S. government. Among them, Battle Born Investments tried to obtain the rights and interests of 69,370 bitcoins involved in the Silk Road bankruptcy estate through legal means, but the Supreme Court decided on Monday not to accept its appeal, which actually supported the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California's ruling in 2022 that these bitcoins could be liquidated.

According to the court ruling, the U.S. government has the right to sell these 69,370 bitcoins worth $4.4 billion. This huge amount of money will be handled by the U.S. Department of Security, and the specific sales method has attracted much attention from the market. The US government has reportedly moved most of the Bitcoin it seized, with blockchain tracker Arkham noting that $2 billion and $593.5 million of BTC were moved in late July and mid-August, respectively. In addition, Coinbase Prime has signed a custody agreement with the USMS to serve as the custodian of these Bitcoins.

The news has attracted widespread attention in the cryptocurrency market. Investors have speculated on the impact of the US government's sell-off on Bitcoin prices. Some analysts believe that the influx of a large amount of Bitcoin may cause a supply shock to the market, thereby limiting price increases. However, others believe that if the sell-off is conducted through over-the-counter (OTC) transactions or lasts for a long time, its impact on the market may be weakened.

In fact, Bitcoin prices did fluctuate after the news was announced. Market data shows that BTC once broke through $61,000, but then fell back, with a 24-hour drop of 1.96%. This fully demonstrates the market's sensitivity and uncertainty to this event.