Winning Bidder of U.S. Marshal’s Bitcoin Auction is…

Savvy Venture Capitalist Tim Draper announced on Bitcoin trading website Vaurum, that his consortium has won the lot of 30k Bitcoins that was auctioned off by the U.S. Marshals. There was no comment on what the winning bid was, but market analyst estimate the holding to be worth $19.4 mm.

In the press release, Mr. Draper expounds on his decision for making the purchase of such a large lot; “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.”

A founding member of Draper Fisher Jurveston, Mr. Draper is currently invested in Vaurum, which according to their website are building a Bitcoin Exchange from the ground up. Other notable ventures he has backed are Skype (later bought by EBay), and Hotmail (now part of Microsoft’s Outlook.com).

Mr. Draper is also known for his stance on government intrusion into our moral life, and was a big proponent of splitting his home state of California into 6 smaller states with more relevant governance. You can watch a video clip of him outlining his case right here: Split California Six Ways.

It’s certainly a novel approach to a growing problem, and Vaurum will have to compete with few but heavily-backed exchanges, such as Coinbase and SecondMarket.