NATIONAL TREASURY TO TAKE IN BITCOINS

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Five years ago, the prosecution had confiscated bit coins worth 200 million won in criminal proceeds from an illegal pornography site operator. The cyber money could not be vested in the national treasury because there were no laws to be applied to the case. However, a legal revision has made it possible for the national treasury to receive the bit coins, the value of which has appreciated 45 times to 12.2 billion won over the past five years.

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This pornography site with over 1.2 million members had operated for three years since 2014. The operator of this site, a Mr. Ahn, was caught by police in 2017. The police seized the Bitcoins he had received in payment for the provided pornographic materials.
At the time 191 Bitcoins were confiscated. One coin was worth about 1.4 million won, bringing the total to roughly 270 million won. In early 2018 when the cryptocurrency market surged, the government had announced several measures to curb speculation.

[Soundbite] Park Sang-ki(Minister of Justice(Jan. 11, 2018)) : "We are planning a motion to ban cryptocurrency transactions. We aim to close down the Bitcoin exchanges as well."

Then the Bitcoin bubble burst, leaving the country absent of related laws. Time passed and the prosecution has been keeping the Bitcoins in a digital wallet for four years. The prosecution was able to sell the confiscated digital money only after the revised law that recognizes cryptocurrency as an asset went into effect on March 25th. The coins were finally up for sale just when the value of Bitcoins began to soar at the end of last year. The coins were sold at about 64 million won each. The value had appreciated more than 45 times from five years ago.
The total gained by the state was nearly 12.3 billion won. This is the first time that confiscated digital currency was sold and reverted to the national treasury. The prosecution sold off the Bitcoins in batches since it was difficult to predict the fluctuations in Bitcoin price and there were just too many of them. The digital money was sold on the day the revised law went into effect in order to prevent any controversy surrounding the sell-off point.