Municipal level wants to benefit from bitcoin proceeds

The municipalities and districts in Saxony want to profit from the so-called Bitcoin treasure. The Saxon Association of Towns and Municipalities (SSG) and the Association of Counties are demanding a 35 percent share of the proceeds from the sale of confiscated bitcoins. With proceeds of around 2.64 billion euros, that would be 924 million euros. SSG President Bert Wendsche referred to the precarious financial situation in cities, municipalities and districts. "Despite the agreed key points for municipal financial equalization in 2025/2026, many municipal budgets will not be able to be balanced in the next two years.

In Wendsche's opinion, the proceeds from the sale of the "Bitcoin Saxony Treasure" are an opportunity to balance the structurally underfunded budgets of the state and municipalities and to initiate urgently needed investments. It is a good tradition in Saxony, and to some extent also enshrined in law, for the Free State and local authorities to share additional revenue with each other. These principles should also be applied to the 2.64 billion euros that Saxony received from the realization of the seized bitcoins. The 35 percent corresponds to the rate at which Saxony usually shares its revenue with the municipalities.

Court must first decide on recipients of confiscated assets

The problem is that the Free State cannot legally claim the money. A court decision on this must first be made at the end of ongoing criminal proceedings. The municipal umbrella organizations assume that the proceeds will go to the state in which the competent court is based. In this case, the Leipzig Regional Court has the say.

The public prosecutor's office in Dresden announced on Tuesday that all of the almost 50,000 bitcoins seized in the course of criminal proceedings had been sold. The money came from a case against the illegal movie-sharing platform "movie2k". The accused had agreed to transfer the bitcoins to a wallet provided by the Federal Criminal Police Office in early 2024. He was arrested abroad in 2023 after an international arrest warrant was issued for him. He is accused of illegally exploiting copyrighted works in almost 220,000 cases.