The nation of Finland has announced that it will sell and donate the proceeds from €75 million worth of Bitcoin it has confiscated during criminal investigations.
Finland says it will now use the money to assist Ukraine in its fight against the Russian invasion.
The announcement regarding the sale of the 1,981 Bitcoins was made in a tweet by Finnish finance minister Annika Saarikko who said:
"The government will donate tens of millions to help Ukraine thanks to the proceeds from the sale of Finnish Customs' confiscated Bitcoin."
The sale of the Bitcoin will be made by Finnish digital asset firms Coinmotion and Tesseract and carried out in such a way that avoids potential money laundering.
Finland had already planned to sell the coins prior to the invasion, much of which was seized during a major anti-drug operation in 2016, which procured 1,666 coins. While the coins seized in the raid were only worth €700,000 at the time, this has now risen to €62 million.
Director of Finnish Finances Pekka Pylkkänen told reporters:
"Our current intention is to make available to brokers for liquidation the legally enforceable virtual currencies held by Customs, around 1,890 Bitcoin, during the spring or early summer. The money will be remitted to the state as usual, as will all other assets seized by Customs."
As soon as the war started, Ukraine opened itself up to Bitcoin donations and created the Digital Transformation Ministry, which says it has received over $60 million (€56.9 million) since it was launched. Ukraine has so far sold €42.7 million of its crypto donations and spent this money on drones, body armour, and 'lethal equipment'. Ukraine has also received a number of NFTs for auction.
The war in Ukraine is now in its third month and while Russian forces have been beaten into a retreat in the north they are now amassing the majority of their ground forces in the east of the country in an attempt to seize the Donbass region and the south of the country from the Donbass to Crimea.
[Based on reporting by: euronews.]
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