The United States Marshals Service (USMS), a federal law enforcement agency inside the U.S. Department of Justice, will auction more than 4,000 confiscated Bitcoins (BTC).

According to the official USMS website, the authority is planning to sell "approximately" four,040 Bitcoins (4,040.54069820), requiring a $200,000 eolith in society to take part in the auction. The USMS said it will return the deposits to non-winning bidders, promising to initiate the return of losing bid deposits within five business days after transferring bitcoins to the winning bidder.

At press fourth dimension, the full corporeality of the auctioned Bitcoin is worth around $37.4 million, according to data from Coin360. The Bitcoin for the bid was seized in various federal criminal, civil and administrative proceedings, the agency noted.

Bidders should pay $200,000 to sign up for the auction earlier Feb. 18

Bidder registration is open from Feb. iii until Feb. 12. The online auction will take identify on Feb. eighteen. Every bit the authority is planning to conduct the sale from 8:00 AM EST until 2:00 PM EST on February. 18, the announcement of the winners is scheduled to come up at 5:00 PM EST. However, the USMS may spend more time to announce winners based on the number of received bids as well as the complication of the review process, which may require additional fourth dimension, the announcement reads.

Similarly to previous auctions held past the USMS, the upcoming auction will be divided in parts. Specifically, the Bitcoin auction will be separated into serial, with 2,500, 1,000, 500 and 40.54069820 Bitcoin each.

Source: United States Marshals Service

The recently announced Bitcoin auction follows a number of similar bids in contempo years. Every bit such, in January 2022, the USMS sold over iii,800 confiscated bitcoins before announcing a 600 BTC bid in October.

Auctions for confiscated bitcoins take been practiced past multiple governments to date. In February 2022, the United Kingdom and Republic of ireland-based auction house Wilsons Auctions hosted their first Bitcoin auction, equally reported past Cointelegraph. Previously, the South Korean authorities announced it plans to auction 216 bitcoins in 2022.