Authorities in Germany have sold $113 million worth of cryptocurrency seized from drug traffickers earlier this year.
What Happened: According to a Wednesday report from the prosecutor’s office in Frankfurt, the seized assets were sold off earlier this month and proceeds were received by the regional government of Hesse.
The Frankfurt General Prosecutor's anti-cybercrime unit turned to Bankhaus Scheich Wertpapierspezialist AG — an entity that specializes in digital assets — to return the funds to regular circulation.
“As the cryptocurrencies are related to crime, they are considered ‘contaminated coins’ and cannot be traded on mainstream exchanges,” stated the bank.
The processes they have in place serve to ensure that trading partners are informed the currencies are back in legal possession and have been declared ‘clean,’ allowing them to be sold.
The company plans to assist with cleaning and returning illicit crypto funds seized by the government in the future.
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What Else: Earlier this year, Germany introduced the “Fund Location Act” which allows certain funds to allocate up to 20% of their assets under management to crypto assets.
According to a report from Forbes, first movers will likely include Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) and Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) as the country's first choices when allocating to crypto because of their widespread adoption.
Price Action: As of Thursday morning at publication, Bitcoin was trading up 0.04% at $48,728.69 and Ethereum was trading down 0.94% at $3,955.96.
