It's a first.
611 bitcoins, worth more than 28 million euros, will be auctioned on Wednesday.
Seller ?
The State, which here liquidates a judicial seizure.
1,500 people, individuals and businesses, registered for this historic sale.
A major event that will be observed very closely in the world of cryptocurrencies.
Where do these bitcoins come from?
It was Agrasc, the Agency for the management and recovery of seized and confiscated assets, which recovered these 611 bitcoins.
Contacted by Le Parisien, the Ministry of Public Accounts, which oversees this administration with the Ministry of Justice, could not tell us where they came from.
However, according to information from Numerama, the vast majority of these bitcoins were seized from French people implicated in the 2019 hacking of the Gatehub platform.
“Judicial seizure has been permitted since 2010,” explains Renaud Alméras to the Parisian, lawyer and specialist in criminal seizures and confiscations.
Before any judgment, it is possible for the State, from the start of the investigation, to seize property in order to ensure that they do not disappear and that if there are any confiscation measures, they can be executed.
Concretely, the defendants remain owners of their property, but do not have the right to benefit from it.
The State can even sell them, "on two conditions", points out Renaud Almeras: if these goods are no longer useful for the investigation and if keeping them can lower their value.
If the defendants are convicted, and there is a confiscation order pronounced by the court, the money from the sale goes to the State and allows, if necessary, to pay damages to the victims. .
Otherwise, if they are found to be innocent, they are the ones who get the jackpot.
While awaiting judgment, the money is placed in an account at the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations.
How it will go ?
With bitcoin reaching record highs - it briefly exceeded $ 50,000 this weekend - the sale of these 611 bitcoins is timely.
They represented, Tuesday noon, 28.036 million euros on the "classic" market (with a bitcoin at almost 46,000 euros).
On March 4, when they were announced for sale, bitcoin was worth just over 40,000 euros, a lot less than 25 million euros.
The auction will be held all day, online.
The 611 bitcoins were divided into 478 lots, from 0.11 bitcoin for the smallest lot to 20 bitcoins for the biggest.
The price has not yet been determined.
"It will be over the sale, depending on the exchange value", explains to Parisian Ghislaine Kapandji, the auctioneer.
Auctions should start at 50-60% of the price, a threshold which could be adjusted "depending on the progress of the sale".
To "sort" among the bidders, pre-registration for the sale was mandatory, allowed until March 13.
In particular, a security deposit of 1,500 euros was requested for the smallest lots and 10,000 euros for the largest.
A total of 1,500 people are registered.
"We have potential buyers who want to buy cryptocurrency, but who are looking for a more reassuring side in the auction than buying on the Internet", explains the auctioneer.
At the end of the sale, the buyers will have to pay and transmit all the information in order to receive their lot.
“As soon as we have received the payment, we do everything to ensure that the bitcoins are transferred within a maximum of 48 hours,” explains Ghislaine Kapandji, aware of the volatility of cryptocurrency.
A whole process of encrypted messaging and secure signatures is then planned to carry out the transfer.
Will there be any good deals?
At Smartchain, where we advise individuals and professionals on cryptocurrency investment strategies, the bets are on.
“There could also be a discount of 5 to 10% of the price, because there is a risk: that of waiting several hours after the purchase to obtain it and that of having bitcoins marked as having been used in criminal cases, and therefore unusable on most platforms for an indefinite period ”, explains Adrien Hubert, COO at Smartchain.
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Philippe Herlin, an economist specializing in cryptocurrencies, warns: the volatility of bitcoin could turn a good deal at some point into a very bad deal a few hours later ... "48 hours (
Editor's note: the maximum guaranteed time to receive the lot
), c 'is absurd when we see that the price of bitcoin can vary by 10% in a few hours… ”Let us also keep in mind the 14% fees, taken from the final price.
A good connoisseur of the subject, however, thinks that "the price could go beyond the price".
And the same source explains: “It goes through the State, with Agrasc, and it is the assurance of not being ripped off by buying on the Internet.
"Some might want to do a marketing stunt, a bit like Tesla, by buying well above the price to make themselves known", predicts Adrien Hubert.
Why sell these bitcoins?
It's a little music that turns on a loop in the world of crypto in France: what if the State began to invest in bitcoin?
“The State should have kept these bitcoins rather than selling them,” explains Philippe Herlin.
He is taking the risk of selling it now when, perhaps in ten years, it will be worth ten times more… ”In the same vein, a petition was recently launched on the Senate website to change the texts and allow the Banque de France to buy and invest in cryptocurrencies.
For Renaud Alméras, Agrasc's approach here is one of ease.
Nothing forbade him to keep bitcoins and make them grow, nor to sell them other than at auction.
"The logic for the State is to make the seizures liquid: we do not keep a car, a building ... we sell", explains the specialist lawyer.
Except for real estate, where sales are highly regulated, “Agrasc is very free on how to sell,” adds Renaud Alméras.
But even if it means selling bitcoin, you might as well sell it as you sell bitcoin, suggests Philippe Herlin.
"The state opted for an auction where there will be auctioneer fees on the seller's side, rather than a sale on an exchange platform where they could have sold at low cost, instantly, and especially the price, adds Philippe Herlin.
This could have been the opportunity to support these French platforms!
"Adrien Hubert will monitor this unprecedented sale very closely:" It is this very old process, a little out of date, that makes it special.
"
