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This essentially means Finnish authorities
are going to have to create a cold storage
solution, at least until a court rules the coins
can be traded for euros. Per Bloomberg, the
Helsinki customs office wouldn’t indicate
how the bitcoin has been stored until now.
Presumably, not in a safe way.
Most of the funds authorities hold, according
to reports, have been confiscated in dozens
of raids dating back to 2016. These likely
came from dark net market Valhalla. Finnish
authorities seized €1 million worth of bitcoin
from it at the time.
coins. One of the sales, held in mid-2014,
saw investor Tim Draper buy 29,656 BTC.
Today, those coins are worth over $345
million. While some investors make fortunes
buying bitcoin early on after seeing its
potential, others argue against it. As covered
by Core Media, Warren Buffett’s investment
chief recently stated that it’s “disgusting”
people buy bitcoin.
Francisco Memoria
[email protected]
Bitcoins to be treated as an
asset
The new guidelines also point out that
authorities need to treat Bitcoin and other
cryptocurrencies as assets, and not currencies.
This means that cryptocurrencies are an asset
that can’t be accepted as a means of payment
or as an investment.
The 2,000 BTC can be converted to euros,
once a court has ruled that they won’t be
returned to the individual or organization
they were seized from. The coins will be sold
through a public auction, and not through a
cryptocurrency exchange for security reasons.
Other governments have also had to deal
with the problem Finland is now solving. In
the US, where the famous darknet market
known as The Silk Road was taken down,
authorities decided to simply auction off the
Core Magazine
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