Image: BTC Keychain/Flickr
Around six months after Ross Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison for running the dark web drug marketplace Silk Road, the US Marshals are auctioning off the last batch of his seized bitcoins.According to a statement on the US Marshals website, 44,341.55308401 bitcoins (or around $10.5 million at today's exchange rates) will be sold."These bitcoins were held in wallet files that resided on certain computer hardware belonging to Ross William Ulbricht, that were seized on or about October 24, 2013," the statement continues.Bidding registration will open on Monday, October 19, and close two weeks later on November 2, with the auction itself taking place the following day. The winners will be notified on November 6.Naturally, the entire process will be very above board, with potential bidders having to register with government-issued identification, making it unlikely that any other dark web businessmen will seize the opportunity. There is also a $100,000 deposit to weed out time-wasters."You will not have the opportunity to view other bids. You will not have the opportunity to change your bid once submitted," the statement reads.The first auction was held in June last year, with the winner turning out to be venture capitalist Tim Draper. Draper also won a cut of the second batch of sold bitcoins, and the third auction was split between three bidders, one of them being Bitcoin exchange iBit. After this auction, around 175,000 bitcoins will have been sold off in total. That's $41,825,000 at current rates, although the price of Bitcoin has dipped dramatically over the past year.