One of the prominent influencers in the Bitcoin space is none other than Pierre Rochard and he recently called on lawmakers to put a stop to the auction of about $1.6 billion BTC that had been seized by the authorities. Instead, Rochard suggested that it was better to use these assets as a strategic reserve. A Bitcoin Maximalist, Rochard is the one who was behind the recent controversy that occurred related to Ethereum, along with the total supply of Ether. Rochard is actually pushing legislators to draft a bill that would comprise of different amendments relating to the Judiciary Act of 1789 and then pass this bill.
The bill that Rochard is pushing for would see that any of the Bitcoin that is seized by the US Marshals Service through any raid should stay in their possession and not be auctioned off. Rochard published a blog in which he issued a warning against auctioning off the Bitcoin, which was around 69,370 in total. As far as the Bitcoin is concerned, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) had been the one to size the cryptocurrency in November, which had been taken from someone who was said to be a hacker part of the Silk Road.
An important thing to note about this seized Bitcoin is that a civil complaint for forfeiture had already been filed by the US Attorney’s office for it. Rochard kept on talking about the urgent need for updating this legislation. Apparently, the man has already anticipated that the US Marshals service will this forfeiture case, which means that all of the Bitcoin that has been sized will be auctioned off within a matter of six months. Richard said that they needed to pass the new law in order to put a stop to this auction and it remains unclear if he thinks that every US lawmaker has a pro-Bitcoin stance and will be able to get a bill like that off the ground so quickly.
In order to justify this move, Rochard highlighted that the auctions of seized Bitcoin between 2014 and 2015 had helped in generating approximately $122 million via the sale of 144,000 BTC. If the same amount of Bitcoin was to be auctioned off today, it would net a whopping return in excess of $3.32 billion. As far as the coins seized in November are concerned, they have a total value of $1.6 billion as of now.
However, Rochard suggests that the US government should consider holding onto the Bitcoin for the long-term because this would help them in reaping more value during the process. US lawmakers have been urged by Rochard for giving Congress more time to think things through on how these assets are to be handled. Rochard also highlighted the critical role of Bitcoin in the treasuries of the national governments of the world. In fact, he went as far as declaring that in the next decade, there will be substantial sovereign wealth funds of the leading cryptocurrency.
