If the government sold US dollars for bitcoin, I would say that sets a precedent that they are treating bitcoin like legal tender. A weak precedent, since the argument could be made that they "sell" US dollars for fighter jets, and yet fighter jets are not legal tender.

If the government accepted bitcoin for other things they offer, I would say that sets a precedent that they are treating bitcoins like legal tender. That would be a much stronger precedent.

If the government purchased things with bitcoin directly - as in used it to settle debts - then that would be the strongest possible precedent (short of them flat out saying "bitcoin is now legal tender") that they are treating bitcoin as legal tender.

The government is not treating bitcoins like they treat legal tender, not in any way, shape or form. I know you're probably just being silly with the "buy bitcoin with bitcoin" line, but there are - as I pointed out above - ways that you could establish a precedent that don't involve sophistry.

I didn't say anything about the intelligence of the process, or the fairness - just it is what it is.

They want their money as fast as they can get it, and couldn't care less about being "fair." They organize the sales of their items in whatever ways will make it more likely to sell and to make it as easy as possible for them to get rid of those things because they are not in the business of managing assets.

They are allowed to bundle things in a way that allows them to sell stuff and minimize overhead. To wit:

If there were a ton of buyers out there who would be willing and able to buy 3000 $5000 cars in one go, then yes, you bet your ass they would lump the sales of cars they take in that way. But, there aren't many buyers out there willing to spend 15 million dollars on a bunch of shitty used cars, so they instead sell them in smaller lots or individually, because that's the only way that those cars will sell.

With bitcoin, there are a ton of buyers out there who would be willing to pony up the deposit of $200k, as well as who would be willing to buy lots sized of 3000 coins at ~500-1000 dollars per coin, and it's a LOT easier to sell to those people than it is to sell to thousands of people who are buying a single coin or whatever.

And, actually, this is in a way MORE fair than having it open to everyone. Normal people - read: not rich - would not be able to get their hands on a single one of these coins UNLESS the bidding got up so high that the people with tons of money decided that yeah, there's no potential for profit to be made by buying them at that price. So "normal people" wind up paying so much/taking on risk for the coin that moneyed interests aren't willing to touch.

And, to pre-empt any silly "how is this different than the car auction" comparisons again, it's different in that selling a bitcoin on an exchange is (probably) easier to do than selling a used car is. When there are easier ways to make money, shitty used cars aren't worth snapping up to keep away from other people. And, actually, if you ever go to an auction of non-shitty cars, they wind up going almost ALWAYS to someone who has plans to flip the car, not actually use it. "Normal people" aren't going to be getting to participate in the auctions that are about making money rather than just obtaining a shitbox to help with your daily commute.

Okay - I take it back, and you will forevermore be considered "adorbs."

With regards to they (in this case law enforcement agencies involved in busting Silk Road) knowing everything:

I think as part of their investigation and bust of Silk Road, they almost certainly became aware of the identities of multiple people who are both interested and able and willing to buy the bitcoins at auction. I'm also willing to bet, given the strong libertarian/fuck the federal government bent of many people participating in bitcoin, they probably at least sent a memo to other agencies not involved in the Silk Road case directly.

The converse of this is that anyone who participates in this auction AND who cares about the privacy/anonymity aspects of bitcoin would have to be catastrophically stupid and pettily greedy. Not an uncommon combination, unfortunately, but they probably weren't flying under the radar to begin with, you know?

Basically this is just going to be a chance - maybe - for someone who already has money to make a few more bucks; the privacy/anonymity angle is interesting, but it doesn't seem like anything with teeth, I guess.

I dunno how meaningful it will be as a data point:

- You have a seller who (probably) doesn't give 2 shits about what happens to the value of what they are selling once the sale is complete dumping the things as fast as they can.

- It's a one-off transaction selling the things in bulk, through a process that is unique/doesn't follow the regularly used methods for bitcoin selling.

- It's getting a lot of attention because.

One way or another, whatever they get sold at, this bit of data isn't really too meaningful, except, maybe as just being kind of interesting to nerds.

And sorry, I didn't mean to be condescending there by saying adorable - I was more trying to shit on the snooping the US government does on random, inconsequential shit.

I'm going by the stated intent to prevent that which is in the summary. I don't know if there are laws about those associated with a civil forfeiture being eligible to bid on items from that forfeiture, but it seems like that's the intent, and it seems like since it's stated there it would be something worth investigating if trying to set up an entirely new process for handling this kind of disposition of assets.

My point here being not so much "what is right" but more "there are a lot of questions to be asked and answered about changing the way this kind of thing is done, and they are all very expensive to resolve, probably more expensive than the potential improvement of efficiency will ever be worth."

You're very confused.

Being able to pay for something with legal tender (US dollars) does not somehow make the things you buy with legal tender into legal tender itself. Nor does it somehow turn it into a currency. It sets no precedent.

Selling bitcoin - or ANYTHING ELSE - at an auction in exchange for US dollars does not set ANY kind of precedent establishing that bitcoin - or ANYTHING ELSE - is now legal tender. In fact, it establishes the opposite.

What WOULD set a precedent is if the government called up some suppliers and gave them bitcoin directly in exchange for things that aren't legal tender, because then they would be saying that bitcoin is the same as US dollars.

What they are doing here is saying "we have these bitcoins (and other things) and we would rather have US dollars, which are legal tender. We will give you these bitcoins for dollars, which we will then go and use like real money."

This isn't difficult.

It's kind of adorable that you think they don't already know this kind of thing, given the amount of internal snooping they do already.

Also that you think they couldn't tank the value much more easily through other means, if they cared to.

Or that they actually care much about bitcoin beyond "how can we tax it?" type of questions.

They have a thing that they want to turn into cash. They want to do this as quickly as possible, and they don't want to spend time or money trying to take into account the vagaries of all the different kinds of things that they take in order to get maximum value.

Seriously, asking them to try and deal with the details of getting as much as possible from bitcoin would be like asking them to restore classic cars they seize and then try and sell them at various shows or through private channels to get the maximum return. Sure, they could squeeze a few extra bucks out of it, but who gives a shit?

Which "open market" should the government use? What system should they use to manage the sail of those coins? How should they ensure that the market they use is legit and secure? What process should they use to ensure that the Silk Road guys aren't just re-buying their stuff? Who will handle oversight to make sure this all goes off accordingly?

Pretty much answering any one of those questions would be a process that costs far more than the estimated value of the bitcoin they have.

Far better for them to use their existing process of auctioning off random shit they seize.

Also, the government couldn't care less if you can't afford to buy the stuff they auction off.

Because that's not how the government works in this regard?

They take shit, they auction it off to the highest bidder. The government is not in the business of managing an inventory, they want to convert whatever they take into cash as fast and efficiently as possible.

They think 3000 coin lots is the most efficient way for them to sell them, and couldn't give a shit as to who buys them as long as they pass the vetting process.

No, it doesn't, actually, or at least not any more than it somehow makes cars, homes, or other items seized and auctioned off suddenly become money.

What would legitimize it would be if they kept them and used them as money to buy things. They aren't. They're getting rid of them and explicitly NOT treating them like money.

It's literally no different than if they'd seized any other thing that some people think is worth buying.

This isn't any different from them auctioning off any asset seized by law enforcement though.

They're basically treating bitcoins like anything else. It's the same as them auctioning off Beanie Babies or baseball cards. They want to convert things they take into US currency and auctions are how they get what the market will bear from it while doing so quickly.

I went from being a developer & manager of 10+ years back to graduate school for public health and social psychology. In my work then and now I was able to use my skills to design and build tools that would vastly increase the efficiency and rigor of the research projects I was involved with.

School was free as I landed an assistantship. Pay cut was a pain - only earned 25k/year + free tuition - but between savings and doing some consulting I was able to make it through without too much hardship. I was able to build a reputation while in school and had multiple offers by the time I finished my program.

The genie is out of the bottle - nothing we do that lands online will ever be forgotten or able to be forgotten unless something apocalyptic happens.

Google can wipe out the links to this guy, but then a thousand news stories about how stupid this law is that use this guy's case as an example will have to go, too, and stories related to the implementation, and so on and so on and so on.

People need to get used to the fact that nothing we do will be forgotten, that we no longer have privacy, and that the best we can hope for (in a manner of speaking) is maybe anonymity, albeit in the form of "no one cares enough about you to bother looking you up."

Having an always available, never forgetting memory has changed the rules and people need to catch up.

Once people catch up, the dumb embarrassing shit that people have online will begin to pale in importance. EVERYONE's embarrassing shit will be online and people will get the fuck over it. The stuff that people won't get over is probably the stuff that's most essential to share.

Slashdot became a lot more fun once I decided to view it like that.