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Blockchain investigation firm Coinfirm claims that the Department of Justice (DOJ) missed out on millions of Bitcoin while seizing $1 billion in Bitcoin connected to infamous defunct dark web marketplace Silk Road.
Did the DOJ miss millions?
The US DOJ recently seized $1 billion in Bitcoin from a person they believe hacked the dark web marketplace. The defunct marketplace, called The Silk Road, was infamous for selling drugs and the use of Bitcoins. Coinfirm released a blog post on Friday, claiming that it has found millions of dollars’ worth of assets that belong to ‘Individual X’. The pseudonym is used by the DOJ for a hacker when it announced its seizure of the Bitcoin on November 5.
Coinfirm claims that there are 693,701 Bitcoin Diamonds that are worth approx. $310,000. There are 69,730 Super Bitcoins worth $66,000 and another coin called Bitcoin Private which is worth $11,000. These are obscure forks of the original Bitcoin chain. Coinfirm has not disclosed the full extent of coins and has not made any public comments on the matter yet.
The hacker still has money
According to Coinfirm, “Whoever has access to the private keys of the main wallet, would still have access to these funds,” which means that all is not lost for the hacker.
The hacker’s wallet address was found after a year of investigation of network history. The DOJ did not seize Bitcoin alone as it worked on less obscure forks of the core Bitcoin chain like Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV.
Silk Road is still making headlines, 7 years after it was shut down by the FBI. The dark web marketplace was accessed via Tor browser and used Bitcoins for selling credit card details, fake driver’s licenses, and drugs. Ross Ulbricht, its founder is serving a life sentence in Arizona without parole. He also posts about the Bitcoin market from his cell occasionally.
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