Saxony is liquidating the bitcoins seized last January following standard procedures for managing confiscated assets.
In recent days, the news of a massive bitcoin sale by Germany has significantly influenced the market. However, it is not the federal government involved in this sale, but the state of Saxony, one of Germany’s 16 federal states. The sale is part of the standard procedure adopted for managing assets confiscated during criminal investigations.
Last January, the Saxony criminal police office (LKA) seized 49,857 BTC, linked to the illegal activities of the website Movie2k.to. Following the seizure, Saxony began selling the bitcoins as part of the normal practice for confiscated assets.
Technical details of the sale
The sales operations are managed by the federal criminal police agency (BKA), responsible for transferring the seized bitcoins to exchanges and overseeing their sale. The involvement of the BKA, rather than Saxony’s local authorities, is due to the technical expertise required to handle large amounts of bitcoins. Despite managing the wallet, the BKA has no decision-making power and only executes instructions from the state of Saxony.
So far, the number of bitcoins held in the BKA wallet has decreased from nearly 50,000 to 23,788 BTC.
