In October 2013, the Federal Bureau of Investigation shut down the Silk Road, an online marketplace for all things shady, and seized $3.6 million worth of Bitcoins. Last week, the US Marshals Service auctioned off almost 30,000 Bitcoins. The bidders were notified on June 30 if their bid was accepted or rejected.

Many speculated that major players in the Bitcoin network would be the ones dominating the auction as the average person would have a hard time even entering it. Reports stated that the seized Bitcoins were sold in 9 blocks of 30,000 coins and one block with 2,656.51 coins. The approximate value of each block was pegged at $1.7 million, and those who wanted to join the auction had to make a “refundable” deposit of $200K.

The Marshals Service reported that 45 registered bidders participated, and that they received 63 bids over the course of the auction. However, it’s not revealed who the bidders were or the amount of the winning bids.

It seems likely the auction went over its estimated value, as prominent bidders such as Dan Morehead who bidded through Pantera Bitcoin, assumed to be a front-runner in the auction, and Barry Silbert, who runs a Bitcoin investment fund through his firm SecondMarket, were outbid.

“The U.S. government auction created a tremendous amount of new demand for Bitcoin,” said Morehead.  “Most of the people we spoke to were new entrants to the Bitcoin market.”

Morehead added that, “None of our bids were hit. I think it went at quite a high price.”

Earlier this month, the agency wrongly addressed an email to bidders which led to the identification of some of the interested parties – these included Bitcoin payment processor Coinbase, value investment fund Rangeley Capital, and CoinApex CEO and co-founder Alex Waters. Though some entities were identified, they stayed tight-lipped as to how much they would bid during the auction.

The auction positively affected the Bitcoin network as its value saw a huge jump from $570 to $639 on Monday.

Analysts believe that there may be two possible explanations for the jump. Gil Luria, an analyst with Wedbush Securities, said many bidders were in communication with each other and may have more information than the market does, and that could have driven the price. Alternatively, Steven Englander, a research analyst with Citigroup, said this could also be a red herring, or that the bidders who won have made others believe they paid an exceptionally high price, when in fact they didn’t.

It’s expected that the winning bidders and the amount of bids will be revealed in the following days.

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