The United States Marshals Service has auctioned off almost 30,000 Bitcoins on Friday and has notified the winners and losers on Monday, but the names of the winning bidders are still unconfirmed.

Dan Morehead, who had cast his bid via Pantera Bitcoin, said the auction had created a new demand for the virtual currency. He added that most of the bidders were new to the Bitcoin market, The New York Times relayed.

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The United States Marshals Service had organized the online auction for 29,656 Bitcoins with the help of the FBI and Manhattan federal prosecutors. The said Bitcoins were confiscated from the online black market Silk Road, which had been shut down in October over allegations of participation in the sale of illegal products and services.

The coins had been divided into lots of 3,000 and the bidders were given 12 hours on Friday to submit a single sealed bid for them.

On Monday, the Marshals Service said there were 45 registered participants in the auction and that it had received 63 bids during the event. The agency has also mentioned at the start of the auction that it will not disclose the names of the winners and the amount of their bids.

Some names of the bidders, however, have been leaked out. Bitcoin payment processing firm Coinbase, value investment fund Rangeley Capital, and CoinApex founder Alex Waters are among those names.

In spite of the revelations of the names of some bidders, most of them remained mum on their bids.

Since the closing of the auction, the price of Bitcoin has increased to $639 on Monday evening from $570 at the beginning of the event, CoinDesk said.

Wedbush Securities analyst Gil Luria said some of the bidders were talking to each other after the auction ended, and a price increase could indicate that they were pushing the price up.

On the other hand, Citigroup research analyst Steven Englander speculated that the price climb could only have been a red herring. He said the bidders want the market to think that the Bitcoin price was high instead of low.

TagsBitcoin auction, winning bidders, Bitcoin price