France Auctions around 600 Bitcoins worth US$ 30 Million
France, for the first time, auctions US$30 million worth (around 25 million Euros) of 611 Bitcoins. The auction concerns the seizures from the French agency (Agency for the Management and Recovery of Seized & Confiscated Assets or AGRASC) that manages the properties that were recovered during legal cases by the police. Everyone can participate in this sale.
Those who want to participate in this auction can do so through compulsory pre-registration on the Interenchères website. The parties who are interested to participate have to pay a deposit of 1,500 euros (around US$1,785) for the first tranche (with prizes worth 0.2 BTC to 2 BTC). In the second tranche of auction, the participants have to deposit 10,000 euros (around US$11,900), where the prizes range from 5 BTC to 20 BTC.
The sale of Bitcoin has been planned for more than a year now. With the French state deciding to go for auction now means that the government will be a big winner. This is because the price of Bitcoin has increased by more than 457% in the last 12-months. Currently, the price of each BTC has exceeded US$50,000. Though the auction of Bitcoins will be done at a price below the actual price, experts believe that the final price will be quite close to the current BTC price.
The auction of 611 Bitcoins will take place in the Kapandji Morrange house. Reports say that the French agency expects many hundreds of investors to flock the venue to acquire Bitcoins at a price below the current market rate.
More and more governments around the world are carrying out auction of cryptocurrencies. Belgium has already conducted such auctions multiple times. The governments around the world are preferring the auction route for selling the seized Bitcoins instead of selling them through a private company or an exchange. This is because they want to project a certain amount of transparency and at the same time avoid potential conflicts of interest.
With the law enforcement agencies in France monitoring cyber criminals and illicit networks on a regular basis and making seizures of illegal cryptos, experts believe that bitcoin auctions by the French State and AGRASC will become more common in the future.
