Three bidders win last week's bitcoin auction: U.S. Marshals

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Three unidentified bidders have won last week's third auction of bitcoins seized from Ross Ulbricht, who was convicted last month of operating black-market website Silk Road, the U.S. Marshals Service announced on Tuesday. The winning bidders won three independent blocks, Marshals Service spokeswoman Lynzey Donahue said in an email. The first bidder won 27,000 of the bitcoins, while the other two won 20,000 and 3,000 of the virtual currency. The transfer of the bitcoins has already been completed, she added. There were a total 50,000 bitcoins auctioned off, valued at $14.6 million at current prices. In late trading on Tuesday, bitcoin was up 1.77 percent at $292.19. Donahue did not reveal the identities of the winners. No one has come forward as yet to announce that they won the auction. SecondMarket, owned and founded by Barry Silbert, had said earlier it submitted a bid for the bitcoins, but did not win. Another bidder, Pantera Capital, declined to comment on the virtual currency sale. Last week's auction attracted 34 bids from 14 registered bidders. That was more than the most recent bitcoin auction in December, when just 11 buyers submitted 27 bids. The first auction in June attracted 45 bidders and 63 bids. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; editing by Chris Reese and Matthew Lewis)