The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Wednesday finalized the forfeiture of 69,370 bitcoin, bitcoin gold, bitcoin SV and bitcoin cash that had been hacked from the notorious Silk Aspect road marketplace, which the U.S. shut down in 2013.

The mandate follows the seizure of the cryptocurrencies from an alleged hacker Particular person X, who signed a consent and settlement of forfeiture with the U.S. Attorney’s Space of enterprise of the Northern District of California on Nov. 3, 2020.

At that time the authorities valued the crypto at bigger than $1 billion and BTC changed into priced at about $13,742, in step with Coingecko. Bitcoin changed into more not too prolonged ago buying and selling at $42,440.

The Silk Aspect road changed into an anonymous marketplace on the dark web that operated from 2011 to 2013. Within the 2015 trial of its creator, Ross Ulbricht, the authorities said Silk Aspect road earlier college bitcoin to facilitate felony activities corresponding to cash laundering, drug affords and murders-for-hire. Ulbricht changed into convicted and is serving a lifestyles sentence.

The seizure of the bitcoins and diversified crypto date to a hack in 2012 or 2013, in step with Bloomberg, which first reported on it.