Story Highlights

• Tim Draper wins USMS Bitcoin Auction
• Won 29,000+ bitcoins
• Using bitcoins as liquidity source for Vaurum exchange

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And now for the news scores of members of the bitcoin community have been waiting for. The winner of last Friday’s bitcoin auction held by the United States Marshals Service has been revealed.

His name is Tim Draper, and he’s a prominent venture capital investor, and he’s made away with all 29,000+ bitcoins worth over $18 million.

The plan? According to this post on Medium, Draper will be partnering with a start-up called Vaurum with the goal of providing bitcoin liquidity in emerging markets.

Said Draper in a statement:

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 pegs itself as a “robust bitcoin exchange for financial institutions”, and the huge pool of bitcoins acquired by Draper from the auction will help serve as a liquidity source for the exchange.

“It’s still quite difficult to get access to bitcoin in these developing economies — and that’s exactly where it is needed the most. Our goal is to build reliable infrastructure and increase liquidity, which are two major challenges in the ecosystem,” a Wednesday-morning statement from Avish Bhama, Vaurum CEO, reads.

Both Tim and Adam Draper are investors in Vaurum, having met at the Boost start-up accelerator in San Mateo, California.

Certainly, it will be interesting to see Vaurum make use of the bitcoins.

“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,” said Bhama.