The Gwangju District Prosecutors’ Office offered off all of 320 (BTC) recovered from hackers and returned them to the nationwide treasury.
The Bitcoin Heist
According to a piece published by Chosun Ilbo, The Gwangju District Prosecutors’ Office introduced on March 10 that it had “sold all 320.8 Bitcoins at market price, repatriating 31.5 billion won to the national treasury.” The Bitcoins had been initially seized from Ms. A, the daughter of operators of a ₩390 billion unlawful playing ring, despite being lost later through the means of transferring the seized Bitcoin to the nationwide treasury. They were then recovered on February 18, when “the Bitcoins returned to an existing wallet, where the prosecutors controlled the keys, without their knowledge”, as reported by Korean outlet Digital Asset.
From Phishing Fiasco To Perfect Recovery
The re-recovered Bitcoin had been liquidated on a home alternate and transformed into roughly ₩31 billion which have now been transferred to the National Treasury. Prosecutors stress they executed the sale step by step over 11 days, from February 24 to March 6, to keep away from disturbing the market value, whereas an inside probe into how the property had been misplaced within the first place continues to be ongoing
A Repeated Incident
This will not be the primary time South Korea has a significant custody failure. On February, authorities accidentally leaked private keys in public documents, which led to the theft of 4 million tokens, roughly valued at $4.8 million. These repeated incident raises the evident exhausting query about whether or not governments, or no less than SK’ authorities, are ready to safeguard digital property they confiscate.
It’s price noting that South Korea is quickly constructing a authorized and operational playbook for seized crypto, with the Supreme Court recently ruling that bitcoin held on native exchanges could be legally handled as an “object of seizure” underneath the Criminal Procedure Act.
For merchants, the Gwangju sale is one other reminder that legislation‑enforcement liquidations at the moment are a structural supply of BTC provide, and for policymakers, it underscores that seizing cash is barely half the battle: securing them and exiting positions with out roiling markets is shortly changing into a brand new sort of sovereign market danger.
BTC's value traits to the upside on the each day chart. Source: BTCUSD on Tradingview
Cover picture from ChatGPT, BTCUSD chart from Tradingview
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