Faced with a huge budget deficit, the United Kingdom is considering liquidating a digital treasure trove worth $7.22 billion in Bitcoin, seized in 2018 in a fraud case. Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party is calling instead for the creation of a strategic Bitcoin reserve. Will Germany’s mistake serve as a lesson?
Is the UK about to sell off Bitcoin?
More than $7 billion worth of Bitcoin: that’s the colossal amount that the UK is expected to sell off shortly to plug the growing hole in its public finances, according to information from our colleagues at The Telegraph.
Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer (the equivalent of the Minister of Finance in France), is under pressure to find £20 billion (approximately $26.7 billion) before the fall to balance the country’s accounts. That’s why the digital gold mine she’s sitting on could give her access to some of that money. This is a very significant amount, which does not come from a Bitcoin reserve strategy, let alone mining, but from a seizure in a court case dating back to 2018. British law enforcement agencies seized several hardware wallets from a large Ponzi scheme that had been operating for several years.
The various political camps are divided on this possibility: Norman Lamont, the former chancellor, has urged the government to “spend this money immediately,” while Nigel Farage, a key Brexit figure and leader of the Reform UK party, has spoken out in favor of a long-term strategic reserve in BTC.
This possibility seems to be well on its way to becoming a reality: according to The Telegraph, the British Home Office is currently working on setting up a centralized storage system to liquidate its Bitcoin holdings.
According to Aidan Larkin, CEO of Asset Reality, a company specializing in cryptocurrency seizure, the UK could generate hundreds of millions of pounds in annual revenue by stepping up its efforts to recover cryptocurrencies used in money laundering and fraud.
In any case, this case is reminiscent of Germany, which decided to sell its 50,000 BTC last year at an average price of $57,000 per unit, for a profit of around $3 billion. If it had not made this sale six days ago, when Bitcoin reached a new all-time high, Germany would have made more than double the profit.
