Bitcoin surged nearly $16,000,000 overnight, more than $1 billion associated with the “dark web” Bitcoin confiscated by the U.S. Department of Justice

On November 6, the price of Bitcoin soared, approaching the $16,000 mark, the highest price this year.

Some analysts pointed out that Bitcoin's surge may be related to the collection of hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin by the United States. On November 5, the US Department of Justice issued a statement claiming that thousands of bitcoins with a total value of more than one billion U.S. dollars were required to be confiscated. This is also the largest cryptocurrency seized by the US Department of Justice to date.

On the one hand, Bitcoin surged overnight, on the other hand, the currency circle has also been turbulent recently. As the leading virtual currency exchanges are successively involved in investigations, supervision has once again clarified the regulatory requirements for virtual currencies.

Bitcoin price breaks through $15,000

On November 6, the price of Bitcoin soared, approaching the $16,000 mark, and the unit price also rose above RMB 100,000, the highest price this year.

According to data from the cryptocurrency market website CoinMarketCap, at 0:00 on the 6th, the price of Bitcoin broke through $15,000 and has since been rising. The highest price within 24 hours was $15,903, which was close to the $16,000 mark. Data show that this price not only set a new high for the year, but also the highest price since the beginning of January 2018.

However, after reaching its highest value at 9 o'clock, Bitcoin fell slightly and still failed to break through the $16,000 mark. As of 14:00, the price of Bitcoin was $15,646, an increase of over 9%.

Bitcoin was born in 2009. In December 2017, the price of Bitcoin climbed all the way to a historical high of 2 trillion US dollars, but then began to fluctuate downwards, and occasionally cooled again after the temperature recovered. Compared with the lowest price in March this year, the current price of Bitcoin has risen by nearly 300%.

With the rise of Bitcoin, the concept of blockchain stocks in Hong Kong stocks rose. As of 14:00, Xiong'an Technology rose by 14%, Shared Group rose by more than 7%, Huobi Technology rose by more than 4%, Boneng Group rose by more than 4%, and Kingsoft and China Micro Holdings also rose slightly.

U.S. confiscates 1 billion bitcoins

Some analysts pointed out that Bitcoin's surge may be related to the collection of hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin by the United States.

On November 5, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a statement stating that the U.S. filed a lawsuit on the same day, demanding the confiscation of thousands of bitcoins worth more than $1 billion. At the same time, this is also the largest cryptocurrency seized by the US Department of Justice to date.

According to the statement, the cryptocurrency confiscated this time is related to a dark web.

According to the indictment, the dark web served a huge black market and was the most complex and extensive crime market on the Internet at that time. During the seizure from 2011 to October 2013, thousands of drug dealers and other illegal traders used this channel to distribute hundreds of kilograms of illegal drugs and other illegal goods and services to more than 100,000 buyers, and laundered money. One hundred million U.S. dollars.

The indictment also claims that the dark web uses a so-called "tumbler" (tumbler) to process bitcoin transactions, which is designed to prevent the tracking of individual transactions through the cryptocurrency blockchain.

The indictment shows that in 2020, the IRS has identified 54 previously undiscovered Bitcoin transactions from this dark web. According to the investigation, these funds were stolen by a hacker in 2012 or 2013. On November 4, 2020, the US authorities have since seized Bitcoin worth more than $1 billion from hackers. It is worth noting that the identity of the hacker was not disclosed in the investigation results.

As the United States needs to submit the case to a judge, the currently confiscated Bitcoin is only temporary. Nevertheless, this also means that a large amount of Bitcoin has withdrawn from the market.

The currency circle continues

On the one hand, Bitcoin surged overnight, on the other hand, the currency circle has also been turbulent recently. Recently, the two major virtual currency exchanges have been involved in investigations, and the price of the platform currency has fallen by more than 20% within a month.

On October 16 this year, the top digital currency trading platform OKex issued an announcement stating that the platform decided to suspend user withdrawals due to the loss of the person in charge of the private key. Affected by the news, the exchange platform currency fell in response.

On the evening of November 2, news broke that Huobi platform executives were under police investigation. Although Huobi officials immediately responded that everything was normal, there was still a wave of "withdrawals", with a total of 100 million USDT transferred out within half an hour of the news.

The sharp rise of Bitcoin has caused the price of virtual currencies to generally rise. On November 6, the price of OKB rose by more than 3%, and the price of HT rose slightly by 1%.

As the leading virtual currency exchanges are successively involved in investigations, supervision has once again clarified the regulatory requirements for virtual currencies. On October 23, the Central Bank issued a notice for public comments on the "Law of the People's Republic of China on the People's Bank of China (Revised Draft for Solicitation of Comments)". The "Draft for Comments" mentions the prevention of virtual currency risks and clarifies that any unit or individual is prohibited from making and selling digital tokens.

On November 3, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government launched a public consultation on strengthening the legislative system to combat money laundering and terrorist financing. Among them, the Financial Affairs and Treasury Bureau of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region proposed to establish a licensing system for virtual asset service providers.

Specifically, this proposal requires that any person who intends to engage in regulated business of virtual asset trading platforms in Hong Kong must apply for a license from the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) and meet the fit-and-fit criteria. The licensee must Comply with the anti-money laundering and terrorist financing requirements set out in the "Anti-Money Laundering Ordinance" and other regulatory requirements aimed at protecting investors.