The UK has reportedly viewed the sale of more than 5 billion British Pounds ($ 6.7 billion) worth of Bitcoin seized to help fill a country budget shortage.
The home office and the country’s head of the country’s treasury, Rachel Reeves, is working on law enforcement to sell its stockpile of seized bitcoin (Btc) and plans to make a system to store the crypto to hold the seller, the telegraph reported on Saturday.
Police manage crypto sales in the UK, but Treasury has been reported involved as the crypto market has rallied, strengthening the value of government handling.
The total amount of Bitcoin -held Bitcoin is unknown, but it contains at least 61,000 Bitcoin, currently worth $ 7.1 billion, obtained from a Chinese Ponzi scheme in 2018 held in the UK.
UK’s idea of selling bitcoin its floating earlier this yearwith the Daily Mail and the Times Reporting In January Reeves could sell Bitcoin Stash to plug in the country’s budget.
Cointelegraph contacted the HM Treasury for the comment.
Ponzi victims want to return the UK
However, the UK’s plans to sell Bitcoin could be brought to the victims of a Chinese Ponzi scheme, looking for the return of Bitcoin since 2024.
“The UK’s Bitcoin is legally controversial,” Susie Violet Ward, CEO of Crypto Lobby Group Bitcoin Policy UK, Says In an X post on Sunday, the report was stabbed as “sensationalism over components.”
“Chinese authorities and victims are demanding it back. Nothing can happen as the legal process has not been resolved,” he added.
The UK took Bitcoin in 2018 after hospitality worker Jian Wen attempted to fund a funding of an investment scheme conducted by Tianjin Lantian Gerui electronic technology by Trying to buy a mansion with BTC.
Wen later charged three counts of money laundering, which he denied, but found guilty in March last year and confined For six years and eight months in May 2024.
A group representing the victims of the Ponzi scheme Question of the Ministry in Adventure in China’s Foreigner In April 2024 to organize in the UK to recover Bitcoin.
UK wants to keep the seized bitcoin
Meanwhile, the Crown Prosecution Service asked the High Court to keep it seizing Bitcoin from the scheme, which could see funds sold and divided between law enforcement agencies.
Freddie New, Bitcoin Policy UK’s Head of Policy, who posted to X on Sunday that any crypto sale will occur under the income of crime laws, set that the owners will be sold “to satisfy confiscation orders” and pay the victims if ordered by a court.
“We understand that the victims here have lost Yuan, not Bitcoin. There is an extra wrinkle here that we also understand that there may be diplomatic efforts to be carried out to request Bitcoin than the yuan that originally disappeared,” he added.
New said that after the victims’ costs and payments, the remaining funds would go to the treasury could be divided between the “bodies involved in asset recovery,” such as the police.
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In May, the UK released soft A 40 million British pounds ($ 53.7 million) “Crypto storage and realization framework” to allow police to store and manage the seized crypto. It is ended Earlier this month after the government said it did not receive bids that could fulfill the demand.
UK re -driven Stockpile Bitcoin
The newly said Bitcoin Policy UK wrote to the government in July 2024, urging it to change the law “to give themselves more decisions to maintain this important possession,” he said ignoring.
Jordan Walker, the founder of Crypto advocacy group Bitcoin Collective, wrote an open letter to the government that urges it not to sell Bitcoin in the light of the Telegraph report.
“The sale of these handles to meet a short -term budget deficiency will send a signal,” he said, adding that it could have “lasting consequences for positioning the UK economy.”
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