The Finnish Customs Administration has decided to take over the sale of the majority of Bitcoin confiscated digital currencies, which are estimated at 1961 Bitcoin, local newspaper yle reported on Thursday.
Cached Bitcoin is valued at over $ 79 million at current bitcoin rates.
For your information, Bitcoin was seized and confiscated from their owners in 2016.
While these cryptocurrencies were due to be sold earlier in 2018, authorities were concerned that bitcoins would find their way into the hands of criminals.
Although these concerns still exist, the Customs Administration has found nothing but good selling in front of it.
Mr. Pekka Pelkanen, Chief Financial Officer of the Finnish Customs Administration, stated:
Management will sell bitcoin directly or through a broker who will handle the transaction.
Bitcoin will be sold as soon as possible, practically in the coming months.
We carefully considered other options before the current decision.
According to customs law, we had the option to hand it over to another government agency or destroy it.
In conclusion, we came to the conclusion that alternatives other than the sale are not realistic.
How did the Finnish government end up with so much bitcoin?
The Finnish government confiscated most of the Bitcoins in the middle of 2016, after stopping the "Douppikauppa" store, which was active on the "Dark Web", and the "Valhalla" store, which was also active in the "Dark Web".
According to the report listed by the aforementioned source, the value of the confiscated bitcoin at the time was barely more than $ 700,000 at that time, and with the passage of time and the increase in the value of the bitcoin, these confiscated coins became valued at nearly $ 80 million at today's prices.
Following the sale of the Bitcoin sources, the funds and proceeds will be transferred to the Finnish Ministry of Finance.