UK Home Office Plans to Sell Approximately $7 Billion in Seized Crypto Assets to Fill Fiscal Gap

Every time the market gets a little better, there are all kinds of sell-offs. In the end, we crypto traders have to fill the UK's fiscal gap 🥲

According to a report by the UK's Daily Telegraph, the UK Home Office is working with the police to sell a batch of seized cryptocurrencies to fill a fiscal gap. The total amount of cryptocurrency seized by the police is not yet clear, but a 2018 raid seized approximately 61,000 Bitcoins from a Ponzi scheme case, which are currently worth more than £5.4 billion (approximately $7 billion), an increase of approximately 20 times since they were seized.

The Home Office plans to establish a "cryptocurrency storage and realization framework" to allow law enforcement agencies to safely store and sell frozen digital currencies. According to a tender notice issued by BlueLight Commercial, a police procurement company, on behalf of the Home Office, the UK government will also provide a contract to operate a centralized service responsible for holding and selling seized cryptocurrencies. The contract is worth up to $53.70 million and is valid for at least four years, but the proposal has not yet received an acceptable bid.

The time between police seizing digital assets and clearing the sale of these assets is often long. The tender notice states: "The average time between asset seizure and the end of legal proceedings (realization) is less than 1 year, and for more complex cases, it may take 3 to 4 years."