The US Supreme Court has refused to hear Battle Born Investments’ case regarding ownership of 69,370 Bitcoin that the US government had seized from the dark web marketplace Silk Road.
Battle Born Investments had requested for a review for the previous judgements on the case claiming that it had purchased rights to the seized Bitcoin now worth $4.38 billion through a bankruptcy estate.
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After SC refused to hear the case, the US government’s civil forfeiture action which legally allows the government to to seize property connected to criminal activity- is now more likely to succeed, paving the way for the sale of the Bitcoin. On July 29, the US government had already transferred around $2 billion worth of the Silk Road-linked Bitcoin to Marshals Service, which uses Coinbase Prime to custody seized cryptocurrencies.
Battle Born previously failed to convince a district court in 2022 and an appeals court in 2023 that it had acquired the BTC through a bankruptcy claim after Silk Road shut down in 2013. A San Francisco appellate court judge said in a hearing that Battle Born didn’t have a valid claim to the Bitcoin haul.
It was Ross Ulbricht who started the Silk Road in 2011 and he is presently serving a life sentence for conspiring to commit money laundering and distributing narcotics, among other charges.
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Also Read: U.S. Government’s Crypto Holdings: Everything You Must Know
