US Government To Sell $10 Million Worth Of Confiscated Bitcoins

According to a report published by Coindesk a US court decided to sell approximately 500 Bitcoins (plus 500 Bitcoin Cash) seized last year in an opioid drug case.

The details of the case aren't very relevant for this article (although, obviously, they are important per se and you should check the link above if you want to find out more) but the fact that we're talking about Bitcoin is. At the moment of seizing, the total value was about $500,000.

Now it's more than $10 million. And the sale will be made by the government.

This raises a few very interesting questions:

  • will government pay taxes for the profit made by this sale?
  • does this legitimates the use of Bitcoin as an asset? As a currency? As property?
  • since the initial state of the seized Bitcoin was "dirty" (they were involved in a drug operation), will this "whiten" them? In other words, by selling "dirty" Bitcoin, the government basically does money laundering?

Recently, Bulgaria was facing a similar situation, only their quantity of Bitcoin will worth today $3 billion.


I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.


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