Tim Draper , Founder and Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson , won U.S. Marshals’ Bitcoin auction. The Bitcoin auction is estimated to be worth a whopping 18 million USD . Since the news came out earlier today that there was only one winner of the auction, there have been many speculated guesses on who that winner was. Tim Draper was probably not one of the options for the many speculators.
Editor’s Note: The USMS has sent the won bitcoins to Tim Draper already in this transaction. Let’s just say that the US government has never moved ~$19 million worth of anything for such a cheap fee before (They actually did not include any transaction fee, whether intentional or a blunder, I’ll let you decide). You can view the transaction here . Tim Draper will have a press conference at 5PM EST .
Tim Draper
Timothy Cook Draper is an American venture capital investor that founded Draper Associates in July 1985, which later became the venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Tim Draper’s investments include, among others, Skype, Hotmail, Tesla, Baidu, Solar City. Tim Draper has also created the DFJ Network, a global network of venture funds who work together to improve service to entrepreneurs, covering 30 cities around the world.
Vaurum – the bitcoin exchange for financial institutions
Tim Draper partnered up with Palo Alto-based Vaurum , a Bitcoin exchange for financial institutions and high-net worth traders, to enable the purchase of nearly 30 000 bitcoins for the price of around 600+ USD per Bitcoin. The reason for their purchase is to strengthen and support modern markets with weak currencies. He says :
“Bitcoin frees people from trying to operate in a modern market economy with weak currencies. With the help of Vaurum and this newly purchased bitcoin, we expect to be able to create new services that can provide liquidity and confidence to markets that have been hamstrung by weak currencies.
Of course, no one is totally secure in holding their own country’s currency. We want to enable people to hold and trade bitcoin to secure themselves against weakening currencies.”
Vaurum’s trading platform is available in different emerging markets and will use the bitcoins from the Bitcoin auction as a liquidity source. Their idea is to create a reliable infrastructure for Bitcoin in developing countries, including increasing accessibility and liquidity of the cryptocurrency.
Avish Bhama, CEO of Vaurum, said in a statement :
“It’s still quite difficult to get access to bitcoin in these developing economies — and that’s exactly where it is needed the most.”
He continues and explain how the partnership with Tim Draper came about :
“Vaurum was incubated by Boost last summer which is where we met Adam Draper and Tim Draper, who are both early investors in us. Collectively, we’ve been brainstorming to come up with new ways to help grow global bitcoin adoption, and what we came up with is a way to leverage our exchanges and utilize the auctioned pool of bitcoins, as well as market making strategies, to help provide liquidity in these underserved markets.
Many thanks to the United States Marshals Service for their facilitation of the auction. We’re excited about the opportunity to put these coins to good use and are looking forward to working with Tim in such a unique way.”
Featured image by Shutterstock.
