Altcoins to watch amid US notice to sell $130M in BTC from Silk Road

• The US government has issued a notice on the sale of over $130 million in BTC linked to Silk Road.
• Court documents indicate this includes 2,874 BTC seized from drug trafficker Ryan Farace and 58 BTC from convicted law enforcement agent Sean Bridges.
• BTC price remained near $40k, but market is watching Ethereum, Solana.

Crypto news today is dominated by the US government’s notice about its plans to sell over $3,200 Bitcoon (BTC) worth more than $130 million. Documents show that these bitcoins are part of the forfeitures related to the infamous darknet marketplace Silk Road.

While the news has had no major impact on BTC price as of writing, the market is abuzz with what the outlook for the top crypto by market cap could mean for altcoins. Elsewhere, the potential resurgence in meme coins has traders eyeing the next gem. Could Memeinator (MMTR) be one of the tokens to watch?

US government to sell BTC worth $130 million

On Thursday, January 25, the United States government filed a notice seeking to sell more than $130 million in Bitcoin (BTC) seized from two individuals connected to the Silk Road darknet.

According to court documents filed in the U.S District Court in Maryland, the government plans to sell 2,874 bitcoins seized from Ryan Farace and Sean Bridges in February 2021 and 58 bitcoins seized from Farace in May 2021.

At the time of the government’s notice, the approximate value of the first batch was $129 million, while the second carried a market value of about $3.3 million.

The BTC forfeitures followed Farace’s conviction over drug trafficking. Bridges, a former Secret Service agent, was convicted of stealing the bitcoins during a Silk Road investigation. The public have 60 days (from the notice’s initial filing date of January 10, 2024) to file a petition if anyone other than the defendants has an interest in the forfeited BTC.

In March last year, the US government announced it had sold 9,861 BTC for $215 million and would liquidate another 41,500 BTC in four batches over the course of the year.

Documents filed in court at the time showed the bitcoins in were from the 51,351 BTC authorities seized from James Zhong in November 2022. Zhong was arraigned over wire fraud charges related to Silk Road marketplace.

Altcoins to watch amid BTC price outlook: Ethereum, Solana, Memeinator

The latest BTC sale from the US government…