Romania’s government is set to auction confiscated cryptocurrency for first time

Romania’s National Agency for the Management of Seized Assets will auction off small amounts of Bitcoin and Ether — a first in the country’s history.

The auction’s cryptocurrency was confiscated from a fraud case. In the auction, 0.97 of ETH will start at 1,670 Romanian lei ($403 USD) and 0.6 BTC begins at 30,535 lei ($7,382.56 USD).

Bidders must be a legal entity, company with “know your customer” procedures, and meet Romania’s requirements of financial laws to fight money laundering. The winning bidder must also provide data on addresses associated with cryptocurrency exchange.

Romania is not the first country to hold a state-run auction on cryptocurrency used in financial crimes.

In February of 2020, the United States Marshal Service auctioned 4,040 bitcoins ($37 million worth) that were confiscated through various federal criminal, civil, and administrative proceedings, as previously reported.

UK police auctioned off £300,000 ($369,000) of criminally seized Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, and Bitcoin SV on Sept. 26, 2019.

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