UK Home Office plans to sell about $7 billion to seize crypto assets to fill fiscal gap

According to Foresight News, according to the Daily Telegraph, the UK Home Office is working with the police to sell a batch of seized cryptocurrencies to fill the fiscal gap. The total amount of cryptocurrency seized by police is unclear, but a raid in 2018 seized about 61,000 bitcoins from a Ponzi scheme case, and its current total value is over 5.4 billion pounds (about $7 billion), up about 20 times higher than when it was seized.

The Ministry of the Interior plans to establish a "cryptocurrency storage and monetization framework" that allows law enforcement to safely store frozen digital currencies and sell them. According to a tender announcement issued by police-owned procurement company BlueLight Commercial on behalf of the Ministry of Home Affairs, the UK government will also provide a centralized service for the holding and sale of seized cryptocurrencies. The contract is worth up to $53.7 million and is valid for at least four years, but the proposal has not received an acceptable bid. The time between police seizing digital assets and cleaning up and selling them is often long. The tender announcement stated: "The average time between asset seizure and legal proceedings ending (realization) is within 1 year, and for more complex cases it may take 3 to 4 years."

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