Wilsons Auctions has announced that it is going to host a 24-hour online auction of Bitcoin and a few other Cryptocurrencies .
To conduct the auction, the United Kingdom-based auction company has signed a contract with the Belgium Federal Government and will list digital assets seized by the Belgian authorities. The auction house will also facilitate storage for the Belgian government.
This is the second such crypto auction by the auction house as in January it sold Monero on behalf of UK law enforcement agencies.
Commenting on the upcoming auction, Aidan Larkin, Wilsons Auctions’ head of asset recovery, said: “We are thrilled to be awarded this first of its kind contract with the Belgium Federal Government to sell seized cryptocurrency, allowing us to open up the opportunity of investing to new buyers."
“Following huge investment into our systems and infrastructure, we are able to offer government and law enforcement agencies worldwide, a secure solution so that the ever-increasing problem of seized cryptocurrencies can be managed by a reputable auction company with significant experience dealing with seized assets.”
The Fate of the Seized Tokens
The company detailed that it will auction approximately 315 coins with no reserve including 104.99 each of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Gold, and Bitcoin Cash. The coins were seized by the Belgian authorities during a darknet drug bust.
To increase Liquidity , the auction house will split the £300,000 worth of digital currencies into a number of lots. Each Bitcoin’s lot will range from 0.5 to 4 BTC.
Last October, US Marshals auctioned off 660 Bitcoins, then worth around $4.3 million. The coins were seized by various US agencies in 31 different cases.
“This contract allows us to further expand our cryptocurrency offering and remove the risks that can be associated with trading with unregulated virtual currency exchanges. We were very encouraged by our last auction of Monero coins and understand that by simplifying the process of purchasing cryptocurrency, auctioning it like any other asset and by offering a varied value of Lots, we are making cryptocurrency obtainable to everyone, welcoming new buyers as well as experienced investors,” Larkin added.
