Tenerife Council to sell Bitcoin bought in 2012 after close to 10,000% price increase
More than a decade after buying 97 Bitcoins for € 10,000 (around $ 11,500) as part of a research project, the local council of Tenerife is preparing to sell the cryptocurrency for almost € 10 million.
BTC was purchased in 2012 by the Instituto Tecnológico y de Energías Renovables (ITER), a public tech center dedicated to research in renewable energy and emerging technologies, local news outlet The report of the day.
The goal, officials say, is not to make money but to study the inner workings of blockchain technology, the decentralized ledger system that supports cryptocurrency.
Today, the investment value has increased by almost 10,000%. But offloading the coins is not straightforward and, in previous attempts, Spanish banks have found them.
Instead, ITER is negotiating with an unnamed financial entity controlled by the Bank of Spain and CNMV, the country’s security watchdog, to carry out the transaction.
Juan José Martínez, Tenerife’s Innovation council, said that the proceeds will fund new research projects at the ITER facility in Granadilla de Abona. The institute currently explores fields such as quantum technology.
