France's government is set to auction off $34 million in bitcoin this week
An auction house in France will host the sale of 611 BTC this week on behalf of a French government agency.
At current prices, that amount is worth about $34.2 million, though the amount up for grabs will be sold across several hundred small tranches.
Set for Wednesday, March 17, the auction will begin at 9 a.m. and feature 437 individual sale lots, ranging from 0.11 BTC to 2 BTC, according to the website for Kapandji Morhange.
As noted earlier this month by French publication Cyberguere, the vast majority of the funds stem from the 2019 hack of exchange service GateHub. The funds stolen at the time were in the form of the digital asset XRP, later believed to have been exchanged for bitcoin.
The auction is being held on behalf of AGRASC, or the French Agency for the Recovery and Management of Seized & Confiscated Assets. Per the auction notice, any participants should have registered prior to March 13.
Bidding on roughly 0.75 BTC in an auction held by the U.S. government starts Monday afternoon, as previously reported.
