Wilsons Auctions lands contract to host world’s first Bitcoin auction

Wilsons Auctions is set to host the world’s first official Bitcoin auction on February 28th in Belfast, Northern Ireland, with Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Bitcoin Gold going under the hammer.

The announcement comes after Wilsons Auctions revealed it had landed a contract with the Belgium Federal Government, which happens to be the first of its kind. The contract is believed to have had significant interest from other European countries.

Wilsons Auctions is a leading advisory service for law enforcement agencies across the globe. The Bitcoin auction will be privately held and situated in Belfast, though bidders can bid for the crypto online as well.

The crypto assets were seized by Belgian police as part of a drug trafficking case. The case involved criminals using the darknet to sell drugs.

The cryptocurrencies up for sale will be split into lots, ranging from 0.5 Bitcoin to 4 Bitcoin, with the Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold being sold in large quantities.

The online auction will be hosted for 24 hours, starting at 12pm (GMT) Thursday February 28th and ending at 12pm on Friday March 1st.

However, the physical auction will not take place until 6pm (GMT) at the company’s Belfast branch. This will also be available to online bidders.

This event follows on from a recent Monero auction held by Wilsons Auctions. The Monero had been seized under the Proceeds of Crime Act by UK law enforcement. The auction was extremely successful, attracting interest from 69 countries around the world.

Wilsons Auctions’ head of asset recovery, Aidan Larkin, noted: “This contract allows us to further our cryptocurrency offering and remove the risks that can be associated with trading with unregulated virtual currency exchanges.

“We were very encouraged by our last auction of Monero coins and understand that by simplifying the process of purchasing cryptocurrency, auctioning it like any other asset and by offering a varied value of lots, we are making cryptocurrency obtainable to everyone.”

Interested in reading more crypto-related news? Discover how Bitcoin bull Tim Draper predicts that Bitcoin will only be used by criminals in five years time on Coin Rivet.