These are BTC that are generally sold at auction as soon as possible, so it is not just a temporary control of the seized resources, but a real possession.
According to the latest news, the United Kingdom has entered the top three countries with the largest Bitcoin holders.
However, these are not public or country investments in Bitcoin, but seizures of BTC by law enforcement and country justice.
Seizure in the United Kingdom Makes It One of the Largest Bitcoin Holders
The Financial Times talked about the seizure that led the United Kingdom to enter among the three largest countries in the world for Bitcoin possession.
The Financial Times revealed that during the trial of a woman accused of cryptocurrency laundering, it emerged that British police had seized £1.4 billion in BTC stemming from investment fraud in China. This is one of the largest cryptocurrency seizures ever seen in the world.
The seizure occurred in 2021, when British police seized four devices containing a total of more than 61,000 BTC stored inside a safe and at a property owned by Jian Wen and his then employer Yadi Zhang. Wen is accused of laundering Bitcoin on behalf of her former employer, who is at large. The value of the seized BTC was approximately £1.4 billion at the time of seizure.
According to the prosecution, these BTC came from an investment fraud committed by Zhang in China between 2014 and 2017. Zhang’s real name is Zhimin Qian, and he stole around £5 billion worth more than £128,000. investors. He later converted part of the profits into BTC and moved to London in 2017.
Wen is not accused of any involvement in this fraud, but only of helping to convert some of Zhang’s Bitcoin into cash, jewelry and other luxury items, including real estate, despite knowing it was the proceeds of crime.
With this seizure, the United Kingdom becomes part of the three largest countries in the world in terms of number of BTC owned.
According to data collected by BitcoinTreasuries.NET, currently the country that owns the most Bitcoin is the United States of America, with around 215,000 BTC.
Value and Impact on Price
The 61,000 BTC seized in 2021 by the British authorities, which were then worth around 1.4 billion pounds (almost 1.8 billion dollars), today on the market would be worth almost 3.2 billion dollars, because in the meantime the price of BTC increased.
In contrast, the 215,000 BTC owned by the US would be worth $11.2 billion. Its possible sale on the market could have an impact, but it would hardly be a significant impact.
First of all, they are never sold wholesale, but in smaller quantities. Furthermore, judicial authorization for the sale rarely refers to all BTC owned by the State, because there must be a specific one for each individual seizure. Finally, these sales are not carried out on exchanges, but in direct auctions completely outside the exchange markets where market prices are set.
However, if the quantities on sale are significant, they may actually drain market demand from the bags, which would inevitably reduce buying pressure.
As a means of comparison, from January 11 to today in just over a month, the Grayscale ETF sold 163,000 BTC, generating only a small correction in the first days when the other ETFs were not able to reabsorb all the Bitcoins sold at Grayscale.
By Audy Castaneda
