Four bidders won $14.3M in the Silk Road Bitcoin auction

(By Nate Raymond, Reuters) – The U.S. Marshals Service on Thursday said four winning bidders emerged from last week’s auction of bitcoins seized during the prosecution of the creator of the online black marketplace Silk Road.

The Marshals Service did not identify the winners in what marked the final auction stemming from the case of Ross Ulbricht, who authorities say ran Silk Road, where the virtual currency could be used to buy illegal drugs and other goods.

The breakdown by amount of bitcoins won per bidder was 4,000, 6,000, 10,000 and about 24,341, said Lynzey Donahue, a Marshals Service spokeswoman. Those bitcoins were worth $14.3 million, according to the Bitstamp exchange.