The United Statesis likely to have missed out on around $1.7billion by auctioning off seizedBitcoin BTC way too soon.<\/p>\n
Using back-dated market rates, cryptocurrency enthusiast Jameson Lopp built a handy portal to estimate the amount of money those sales have generated since 2014.<\/p>\n
US authorities have seized 185,230 BTC through criminal investigations between 2014 and now, including anauction for 3,813 BTC that runs throughout February.<\/p>\n
Lets say, though, that the US Marshals held ontoall of the Bitcoinseized over the past six years. Pretend they smartly sold them yesterday when the price of BTC hit $10,000 once more they wouldve netted a groin-thumping $1.85 billion.<\/p>\n
Instead, Hard Fork re-ran Lopps numbers to gauge the approximate price of each BTC auctioned by the US Marshals. As it turns out, its probable theyve sold Bitcoins for just $818 each, on average.<\/p>\n
So,Bitcoin sold by the US Marshals has earned them roughly $151 million, according to Lopps portal. If this is the case, it would indeed mean the US government has short-changed itself roughly $1.7 billion by refusing to hold.<\/p>\n
UK police are also in the business of auctioning criminally-seized cryptocurrency, having conducted BTC auctions for the first time late last year.<\/p>\n
In September, Hard Fork reported that Wilsons Auctions sold Bitcoin on behalf of the Crown to generate $369,000. On average, 1 BTC sold for $8,365, 0.5 BTC for $4,236, and 0.25 BTC for $2,426.<\/p>\n
At the time, Bitcoin traded on cryptocurrency exchanges for a little over $8,000, which means the UK generally finalized those auctions at above market rates.<\/p>\n
Bulgarias government however appears to do it better than both the US and the UK, which had been long-rumored to be sitting on 200,000 BTC ($2 billion) seized from criminals.<\/p>\n
Eventually, local media reports indicated the full amount of cryptocurrency was actually sold to several sovereign wealth funds and Asian investors for around $16,000 each, which is a helluva lot more than $818.<\/p>\n
Published February 10, 2020 16:51 UTC <\/p>\n
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