The Cologne public prosecutor's office does not have such a rush every day - at least virtually. While there was a normal press conference in boardroom 362, thousands watched online. It was about the digital currency Bitcoin, and as always when it comes to the oldest and therefore best-known cyber currency, there is great interest. Not without reason, it is currently at a record price level of around $ 62,000. Naturally, this attracts many soldiers of fortune. And the public prosecutor's office in Cologne - more precisely the central and contact point for cybercrime, or ZAC for short - wanted to comment on the fact that they are now auctioning confiscated Bitcoin. If you look at what the judiciary is auctioning off, you will notice the digital currency: between office chairs,Soup buckets and a bright yellow sports car from the Lotus brand can now also be found there.

Franz Nestler

Editor in business.

  • Follow I follow

To explain why she is now auctioning the Bitcoin, she has brought out relatively large guns - including Peter Biesenbach (CDU), the acting Minister of Justice in North Rhine-Westphalia. He explained that this auction was "legally complex". That is why they decided to use their own Justiz-Auktion.de portal in order to comply with all requirements. That is an innovative concept. A total of 215 Bitcoin will now be auctioned - at the current price, these have an equivalent value of almost 12 million euros. Another 250 Bitcoin have been confiscated and are still earmarked for auction. At the start of the countdown, the Minister of Justice pressed another virtual green button. With a grin he explained: “The finance minister is keeping his fingers crossed for us” - after all, the money flows directly into the state coffers.

Much from drug deals

Markus Hartmann, who heads the ZAC as senior public prosecutor, explains that the majority of the Bitcoin confiscated come from online trading. This is mainly about virtual money from drug deals. Finding this at all is currently one of the greatest challenges. The data carriers on which the virtual money is located are sometimes just tiny memory cards that are barely the size of a fingernail. In the meantime, special data carrier detection dogs are even used for this purpose. They can perceive a special mixed smell - for example of built-in rare earths and alloys - that only sticks to cell phones or data carriers. But here, too, the following applies: the smaller the object, the more difficult it will be to find it. Nevertheless, there are currently no major problems on the wallets,in which the digital currencies are stored.

A total of 15 auctions are now planned for the first time, as the responsible public prosecutor Andreas Brück explains.

The auction duration is then two days, the graduations are between 0.1 and 10 Bitcoin.

The starting price is 80 to 90 percent of the daily rate.

Bitcoin can no longer be assigned to individual offenses.

The auctioned Bitcoin are then handed over on paper.

It then contains everything you need to know so that the buyer can get the digital currency.

It can also be sent at the usual transaction fees.

Realization, not speculation

On Monday, the auctioning of Bitcoin began, but there are also stocks of other digital currencies - these are, however, very small. Prosecutor Brück names Monero and Ripple as examples. Incidentally, the judiciary cannot just sell the Bitcoin. The Ministry of Justice stated: “The recovery of confiscated objects is usually carried out by public auction. That's what the law says. According to the underlying legal opinion, which we follow, this also applies to Bitcoin. ”Brück also explains that they did not wait for a suitable time to auction. “The order is not speculation, but exploitation. That is the only thing that guides us, ”says the prosecutor.

The auction subsequently enjoyed great popularity.

The first Bitcoin to be discontinued had already registered 23 bids by Monday afternoon.

Around 13,000 people have already viewed the auction.

In some cases, the auction prices already exceed the current market value.

The speculation as to why this is so go far: "Maybe because you know that you can get the goods from us," said a judge spokeswoman.

On Twitter, on the other hand, it is speculated that the paper with the QR code also has collector value.

Or that the buyers have simply confused the dollar and the euro exchange rate.

That, in turn, would somehow fit in with this unusual auction.