The government of Finland has decided to sell seized Bitcoin from criminal investigations to support Ukraine, donating tens of millions of euros to them.
Finland, seized Bitcoin are donated to Ukraine
According to the decision of the government of Finland, it seems that the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have agreed to sell the Bitcoin seized by the country’s authorities to donate the proceeds to Ukraine.
Here’s the announcement on Twitter:
The Finnish Government decided on significant additional aid to #Ukraine. Finland will donate tens of millions of euros from the sale of #bitcoin seized by Finnish Customs to Ukraine. This historic decision was taken by the Ministry and Finance and Ministry for Foreign Affairs. pic.twitter.com/RNDenhsBWH
— Valtiovarainministeriö | Finansministeriet (@VMuutiset) April 28, 2022
“The Finnish Government decided on significant additional aid to #Ukraine. Finland will donate tens of millions of euros from the sale of #bitcoin seized by Finnish Customs to Ukraine. This historic decision was taken by the Ministry and Finance and Ministry for Foreign Affairs.”
An original idea from Finland, which has decided to dedicate part of the proceeds from the liquidation of BTC and other cryptocurrencies to support Ukraine, which has been under attack from Russia for over two months.
Finland and the choice of brokers to sell the seized Bitcoin
Helsinki authorities have reportedly chosen two brokers to organize the sale of around 1,890 BTC (€71 million) by the summer.
They are Coinmotion, a trading and custody provider based in Jyväskylä, and Tesseract, a Helsinki-based lender of digital assets.
Finland’s Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, Annika Saariko, also confirmed the news via her Facebook account, commenting on the current donation as follows:
“[…] Customs and its top professionals once confiscated a significant amount of bitcoin in connection with drug and doping. Customs had a plan to sell those bitcoin and take them to the state, according to its mission statement this spring. The amount is large, estimated at 70-80 million euros. Meanwhile, Ukraine, which is at war, is reasonably asking the rest of us: what will you do? How will you help? The question is touching and strikes at the heart. Naturally, we have already directed many types of assistance to Ukraine in the past, including weapons. It was right and necessary. Now we can say that we will direct many more euros to help the humanitarian crisis and in the future also to rebuild Ukraine.”
Ukraine, digital humanitarian aid continues
The Russia-Ukraine war has been going on for more than two months and institutions, governments and even companies continue to send aid and support.
Digital technology has become a perfect tool for this mission, so much so that UNESCO has stepped in to create the digital project Backup Ukraine together with the Polycam app.
The aim of the project is to digitally safeguard Ukraine’s artistic heritage.
Thanks to Polycam’s technology, Ukrainian users will be able to scan their important monuments in 3D and quickly upload a digital version before they are bombed and destroyed.
Speaking of economic aid, crypto-exchange leader Binance has announced the launch of a new debit card for Ukraine, which will enable it to manage donations with the stablecoin BUSD.
Source: https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2022/04/29/finland-sells-seized-bitcoin-support-ukraine/