UK plans to sell seized Bitcoin to fill fiscal gap, sales could reach $7 billion

PANews reported on July 20 that the British Home Office is working with the police to sell a batch of seized cryptocurrencies to fill the financial gap, according to the Daily Telegraph. The total amount of cryptocurrencies seized by the police is currently unknown. But a raid in 2018 seized 61,000 bitcoins from a Ponzi scheme case. Last week, the value of Bitcoin reached $123,000, making it worth more than 5.4 billion pounds (about 7 billion U.S. dollars), a 20-fold increase from when it was seized.

The Home Office plans to establish a "cryptocurrency storage and liquidation framework" that will allow law enforcement agencies to securely store frozen digital currencies and sell them. According to a tender notice issued by BlueLight Commercial, a police procurement company, on behalf of the Home Office, the British government will also offer a contract to operate a centralized service responsible for holding and selling seized cryptocurrencies. The contract is worth up to $53.7 million and will be valid for at least four years. But the proposal has not yet received an acceptable bid. The time between the police seizing digital assets and clearing and selling them is often long. The tender notice acknowledged: "The average time between the seizure of assets and the end of the legal process (liquidation) is less than 1 year, and for more complex cases it may take 3 to 4 years."