Finnish police offer $300K to broker who can sell $80M in seized Bitcoin

Finnish authorities are searching for a middleman to help sell seized Bitcoin worth more than $78 million, reports Bloomberg.

Finnish police are searching for a middleman to help sell seized Bitcoin worth more than $78 million, reports Bloomberg.

Finland’s feds confiscated the illicit 1,981 BTC stash in a series of drug busts between 2016 and 2018. The crypto is now sitting in customs vaults.

Since seizure, the Bitcoin has caused storage problems for the country. Government guidelines say police can’t spend, invest, or custody it with a third party.

As a result, officials have sought to offload the Bitcoin since early this year. They’re however reluctant in case diluting the cryptocurrency now benefitted criminal activity somewhere down the line.

Now, Finnish customs want a professional Bitcoin broker to get rid of the existing stash, as well as any other criminal crypto in government hands moving forward.

The two-year partnership would reportedly net the fixer €250,000 ($297,000). The amount could increase depending on future seizures.

US missed out on billions from seized Bitcoin

Finland follows the US, which was the first country to sell confiscated Bitcoin at auction seven years ago.

But judging by an online portal tracking US government Bitcoin auctions, they probably should’ve waited.

The US seized $1 billion in Bitcoin tied to Silk Road last year, having already auctioned thousands of BTC belonging to its lead brain Ross Ulbricht.

According to the site, US Marshals have sold just over 185,000 BTC to-date for $151 million.

At today’s prices, that BTC would be worth $7.2 billion — meaning the US government has missed over $7 billion by selling seized Bitcoin too early.

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