Share this article
Finland Mandates Cold Storage, Public Auctions for Seized Bitcoins
The Finnish government has released guidelines prescribing how authorities must handle the 2,000 bitcoin confiscated since 2016.
Updated Sep 13, 2021, 7:35 a.m. Published Feb 20, 2018, 3:00 p.m.
Make us preferred on Google
Finland's government released new guidelines on Tuesday that set out how law enforcement officials must handle cryptocurrencies they confiscate.
The official agencies in charge of storing the cryptocurrencies will now be prohibited from placing the funds on exchanges, and must instead keep them offline and inaccessible from the internet, a Bloomberg report states, citing official Treasury documents.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters
The ruling effectively means the agencies involved will need to identify some form of cold storage solution, in which they would maintain a wallet that does not have an active Web connection. Bloomberg said the Helsinki customs office would not indicate how it has been storing the cryptocurrencies until now.
The news source states that Finland's authorities currently hold around 2,000 BTC that have been confiscated in raids since 2016, as per data from the customs office. At today's prices, the 2,000 BTC is worth around $23 million, according to CoinDesk's Bitcoin Price Index.
As reported by CoinDesk, in 2016, customs agents in Finland seized bitcoin and other items worth about €1 million at the time, in connection with the operation of an online dark market called Valhalla.
Asset treatment
The new guidelines go on to indicate that authorities must also treat cryptocurrencies as assets, rather than currencies.
Once a court has ruled that the funds will not be returned to the owner, Bloomberg says, they may be exchanged for euros. The document recommends sales should take place through public auctions, rather than on cryptocurrency exchanges, for security reasons.
Other governments have faced the quandary of what to do with cryptocurrencies they confiscate – and as seen in the U.S., the solution is often simply to auction them off publicly.
While it's not clear how they must store cryptocurrencies, U.S. authorities have held a number of auctions for seized bitcoins in recent years.
Most notable, perhaps, were the sales of cryptocurrency holdings seized from the now-defunct dark market Silk Road. One such sale held in mid-2014 offered 29,656 BTC (won by investor Tim Draper), and a later auction of 44,341 BTC took place in October 2015.
Combined, those 73,997 bitcoin would be worth $853 million at today's prices.
Bitcoin and handcuffs image via Shutterstock
More For You
KuCoin captured a record share of centralised exchange volume in 2025, with more than $1.25tn traded as its volumes grew faster than the wider crypto market.
What to know:
- KuCoin recorded over $1.25 trillion in total trading volume in 2025, equivalent to an average of roughly $114 billion per month, marking its strongest year on record.
- This performance translated into an all-time high share of centralised exchange volume, as KuCoin’s activity expanded faster than aggregate CEX volumes, which slowed during periods of lower market volatility.
- Spot and derivatives volumes were evenly split, each exceeding $500 billion for the year, signalling broad-based usage rather than reliance on a single product line.
- Altcoins accounted for the majority of trading activity, reinforcing KuCoin’s role as a primary liquidity venue beyond BTC and ETH at a time when majors saw more muted turnover.
- Even as overall crypto volumes softened mid-year, KuCoin maintained elevated baseline activity, indicating structurally higher user engagement rather than short-lived volume spikes.
More For You
Coreweave stock gains 9% on fresh $2 billion Nvidia investment
Already an investor in CoreWeave, Nvidia last September had agreed to purchase $6.3 billion of computing services from the AI infrastructure provider.
What to know:
- CoreWeave shares jumped about 9% in pre-market trading after Nvidia invested another $2 billion in the AI-focused cloud company.
- The new funding is intended to help CoreWeave expand to more than 5 gigawatts of AI-dedicated data centers by the end of the decade.
- The deal deepens a yearslong collaboration in which Nvidia and CoreWeave will align on hardware, software and data center strategy, and test CoreWeave’s Mission Control resource-scheduling platform for potential integration into Nvidia’s ecosystem.
Top Stories
