The Finnish customs authority Tulli is currently preparing the sale of bitcoins worth $ 75 million. The coins were confiscated in 2016 – at that time the 2,000 BTC were still worth 850,000 dollars.
They then slumbered in their wallets for a few years – and now the authority wants to sell their exactly 1,961 Bitcoins. A large part of the Bitcoins was originally confiscated from a wanted drug dealer, the darknet operator Douppikauppa (Finnish for “dope store”). BTC inventory value then: $ 850,000.
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Worry, the coins could go to criminals
Douppikauppa is reported to have gained notoriety after an infamous interview. In it, he allegedly boasted that the authorities would never catch him because they were helpless against users of encrypted networks like Tor.
In the end, that turned out to be a miscalculation – because he is now rid of his Bitcoins. Allegedly, the customs authorities are said to have planned to sell the BTC via an auction as early as 2018 – but worries that the cryptocurrency could end up in the hands of criminals again.
Unfortunately, Pekka Pylkkanen, director of the authority, uses a really old crypto cliché, explains:
“In our view, the problems are specifically related to the risk of money laundering. The buyers of [Kryptowährung] rarely use it for normal endeavors. “
Is that really true? Or have the authorities been waiting for the current bull run with Bitcoin? Because at the current Bitcoin rate, the 2,000 confiscated BTC are worth more than $ 76 million.
Proceeds go directly to the Treasury
Bitcoin recently even managed to climb into the top 10 most valuable assets by market capitalization, such as a ranging website Assetdash shows. At the time of writing, BTC ranks 8th there – way ahead of Mastercard or Visa and right behind Facebook and Tesla.
So regardless of the reasons, the wait was worth it for the Finnish authorities. The proceeds from the Bitcoin sale, which will take place within the next few weeks, should then go directly to the Finnish Ministry of Finance.
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