Bitcoiners Increasingly Targeted by Police as Prices Yield Large Asset Forfeiture Gains

The Department of Justice has announced another potential auction of seized bitcoin, totalling over 8 million USD. There’s a noticeable uptick in bitcoin-related prosecutions since at least 2014 and the Ross Ulbricht, Silk Road affair. With the price of bitcoin rising to stratospheric heights, the phenomenon has made bitcoiners relatively wealthy; it might have also brought law enforcement scrutiny, as loose asset forfeiture regulations create potentially perverse incentives for police.