Finland’s Customs department, Tulli, has decided to sell nearly 2,000 bitcoins valued at around $76 million. The Bitcoin stash was seized by local authorities in 2016 in connection to Darknet drug-trafficking investigations.
Four years after, the seized asset is now worth more than 100 times. Although Tulli had plans to sell the bitcoins in 2018, authorities were worried that the Bitcoin would find its way back into criminal hands. Whilst this is still a possibility, the agency has finally reached a decision to discard the digital assets.
Speaking on the recent development, ekka Pylkkänen, Tulli CFO, noted that the department would either use an intermediary or sell the Bitcoin itself. He said in a statement:
On behalf of the Customs Act, we had the option of handing them over to another government agency or some other party and destroying them […]We came to the conclusion that alternatives other than sales are not realistic.
It is also worth stating that the department had not revealed the amount of Bitcoin it will be selling. However, the proceeds from the sales will be sent to Finland’s Ministry of Finance.
Less than a month ago, bitcoin influencer, Pierre Rochard, appealed to U.S. lawmakers to prevent the sale of seized bitcoins valued at around $1.6 billion. The price of Bitcoin was only $23,000 then. With Bitcoin blasting past $40,000, the seized Bitcoin would be worth over $2.7 billion today.