The government of Lithuania bagged millions of dollars on Tuesday after selling digital currencies confiscated by the law enforcement agencies in the country. The development today marks the first cryptocurrency sale by the government. The authorities failed to disclose further how the cryptos were sold – whether it was conducted under auction. However, they admitted that the process wasn’t easy, especially during conversion to fiat currency.
According to the report, Lithuania State Tax Inspectorate (STI) was in charge of the sale. The country’s tax authority reportedly gained about EUR 6.4 million (about AU$10.3 million) from the sales of the digital currencies, which includes Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and the privacy coin, Monero (XMR). The proceeds have been added to the state’s budget, as per DELFI, a local news outlet.
Lithuania Gained Over AU$10 Million
Speaking about the sale, the representative for the State Tax Inspectorate, Irina Gavrilova, said the process was quite challenging. The conversion of the digital currencies to Euros nearly took 24 hours before completion. This boils down to the fact that it was the first time the agency dealt with such a situation. Gavrilova added in the report:
“The whole process for the tax administrator was new, starting with the taking over of the confiscated cryptocurrency and ending with its implementation.”
According to DELFI, the digital currencies were seized by the law enforcement agencies in February this year. There weren’t any more details regarding how and why the cryptocurrencies were confiscated, however, it’s worth mentioning that the country is one of the jurisdictions in Europe with a clear regulation for the digital currency space. Recently, the central bank announced plans to launch a digital collector coin known as “LBCOINs.”
In a separate development, another European region, Belfast, revealed plans to auction about 47 Bitcoin, which is worth about AU$1.2 million in today’s price at AU$26,321.