Leading auction company in worlds first seized Bitcoin & Luxury Assets Auction

£550,000 raised by Wilsons Auctions as first private auction company to sell seized crypto currency & luxury assets

Wilsons Auctions has made history by successfully managing the first public auction of Bitcoin cryptocurrency in the world by a private auction company along with a host of luxury seized goods, realising a hammer total of £550,000 for law enforcement and government agencies.

The world-first saw approximately 315 seized Bitcoins sold over the course of 24 hours as well as a selection of luxury watches by Rolex, Chopard and Cartier, a BMW M4 and designer goods from Christian Louboutin, Jimmy Choo, Hermes and Louis Vuitton.

The popular cryptocurrency, Bitcoin was sold across two auctions – the monthly Unreserved Government Auction on Thursday 28th February, which includes both physical and online bidding and includes luxury assets seized by government and law enforcement across the UK and Ireland and a 24-hour Unreserved Timed Online Auction which time-out on Friday 1st March.

The crypto assets were sold across 69 Lots including 104.99 each of bitcoin, bitcoin gold and bitcoin cash. Auctioned with no reserve, the Bitcoin successfully achieved over the market value, reaching over 6,400 bids and interest from over 100 countries world-wide.

The auction was the result of the Asset Recovery Department at Wilsons Auctions winning a European-wide tender and being selected by the Federal Government of Belgium to manage the storage and sale of seized crypto assets. Fending off stiff competition from specialist crypto currency exchanges, the Asset Recovery Department’s experience and reputation in managing and selling contentious assets around the world, was a contributing factor in winning the contract and it’s a momentous progression for the auction company, with over 80 years of experience, in managing the storage and sale of seized assets for the vast majority of law enforcement and public sector bodies in the UK & Ireland.

The bitcoins were seized by the Belgium police as a result of a drug trafficking case in which the criminals used the DarkNet to sell drugs.

Having invested heavily into its infrastructure and systems, Wilsons Auctions is now able to offer government and law enforcement agencies worldwide a secure solution in realising these difficult assets so that the ever-increasing problem of seized cryptocurrencies can be managed by a reputable auction company.

The luxury goods also achieved impressive results on behalf of Wilsons Auctions law enforcement and government agencies across the UK and Ireland.

Speaking of the success of the auction, Head of Asset Recovery, Aidan Larkin said, “This has been a very exciting week for Wilsons Auctions, not only have we been realising a host of luxury assets that Wilsons Auctions is now well-known for, but we successfully managed the world’s first public auction of seized popular cryptocurrency, Bitcoin.

“By simplifying the process of purchasing cryptocurrency, auctioning it like any other asset, we have made it obtainable to everyone from experienced investors to novice buyers and the results certainly indicate this. We are very encouraged by the demand for our cryptocurrency auctions and look forward to hosting more in the near future,” he added.

Wilsons Auctions is a leading auction company with over 80 years of experience building skilled knowledge in an extensive variety of assets. The Asset Recovery Department works with 17 countries worldwide realising assets from cryptocurrency to supercars, luxury watches and designer goods and in recent years has realised over £100 million worth of seized assets for government agencies, law enforcement agencies and insolvency practitioners.