652 Ukrainian officials declare holding a total of 46,351 BTC

[hatshepsut93]

Source: https://t.me/zedigital/654

Ukraine's Minister of Digital Transformation said on Telegram that 652 Ukrainian officials declared holding a total of 46,351 BTC. He commented that either they are lying to launder their money, or there are more progressive investors in Ukraine than he thought.

It's been known for a long time that some Ukrainian members of Parliament and other officials invest in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, but the full scale of it has never been known. It's possible that the figure is that big, if there are a lot of early investors, but it could also be like the minister said - an attempt to launder dirty money by presenting them as a profit from Bitcoin investment.

It's possible to buy some old coins that haven't been touched for years and their private key on OTC markets for some premium, transfer them to your own wallet, and then claim that you have owned them for years and even present a signature as a "proof".

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[Lorence.xD]

46k of bitcoins is an impressive number, and laundering is definitely in the possibilities since corruption in politics is rife, I might be wrong though and that they might just be progressive thinking like what OP says.

[Lucius]

I'm not at all surprised that any politician in any country invests in Bitcoin, they consider themselves smarter than most people, and who wants to miss the opportunity to make money, especially in a country where aren't many real opportunities. Tactics with buying private keys with the old balance may make sense for some, especially if it is a country where corruption is at a high level - I guess that with private keys come receipts for the purchase of those same coins.

In any case, this Ukrainian minister has a demanding job to try to find evidence of any illegal activities if he thinks they exist. Otherwise, he must accept that people are simply smart investors, which of course is not prohibited by law.

[davis196]

Bitcoin isn't that anonymous,so those government officials must be really stupid,thinking that they could successfully launder their money by buying BTC.

It's possible to buy some old coins that haven't been touched for years and their private key on OTC markets for some premium, transfer them to your own wallet, and then claim that you have owned them for years and even present a signature as a "proof"

This seems like a smart move,but I haven't seen people,who are selling old coins inside a wallet+private keys.
I don't think that the Ukrainian government officials are that smart and tech savvy.
They have even declared ownership of the BTC,which is weird.Why would they declare something they want to hide?This doesn't make any sense.

[Fundamentals Of]

652 officials is a large number. If this is much lower, I wouldn't doubt its truth. But hundreds of them? The numbers make everything a little suspicious.

It is also possible that since officials regularly talk with their fellow officials, they might have discussed Bitcoin and then it simply spreads among the others. But it is still surprising knowing that their Bitcoin holdings amount to almost 3 billion USD. That's a huge amount being held by government officials in a pretty anonymous way.

[tranthidung]

I'm not at all surprised that any politician in any country invests in Bitcoin, they consider themselves smarter than most people, and who wants to miss the opportunity to make money, especially in a country where aren't many real opportunities.

North Korea and other nations with financial sanctions can run their bitcoin mining rigs. They will do it in secret but they don't lose anything when mining bitcoin. No data or article is available about this tactic but I think some are applying it.

In any case, this Ukrainian minister has a demanding job to try to find evidence of any illegal activities if he thinks they exist. Otherwise, he must accept that people are simply smart investors, which of course is not prohibited by law.

As in my nation, governments, police, banks and laws don't protect locals if they have crypto exchanges and get scammed; or they have trades with people (trade partners) have capital from money laundering.

If they are bitcoin sellers: they will lose their bitcoin to scammers and have to return fiat to police or governments. They only protect people who have fiat stolen by scammers.

I think governments (police) will take over the amount of bitcoin after they arrest scammers. Even they get bitcoin from scammers, they don't give the bitcoin to bitcoin sellers. Take it for themselves. Who knows? It can happen in any nation.

[Kakmakr]

Source: https://t.me/zedigital/654

Ukraine's Minister of Digital Transformation said on Telegram that 652 Ukrainian officials declared holding a total of 46,351 BTC. He commented that either they are lying to launder their money, or there are more progressive investors in Ukraine than he thought.

It's been known for a long time that some Ukrainian members of Parliament and other officials invest in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, but the full scale of it has never been known. It's possible that the figure is that big, if there are a lot of early investors, but it could also be like the minister said - an attempt to launder dirty money by presenting them as a profit from Bitcoin investment.

It's possible to buy some old coins that haven't been touched for years and their private key on OTC markets for some premium, transfer them to your own wallet, and then claim that you have owned them for years and even present a signature as a "proof".

Why should the ownership of coins by government officials, be any different than ownership of public citizens? Does the fact that those people are working for the government, make them more prone to financial crimes or corruption?

Bitcoin has seen phenomenal growth in the last 5 years and this is published widely on social media, so anyone with some money to invest, will skip the low interest rates given by Banks and Bonds and rather invest in something that will beat inflation. (Including government employees) 

[Argoo]

That's quite possible. In the media of Ukraine, sometimes there is information about the possession of large amounts of bitcoins by some deputies of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. So, a few days ago I read that the Urbansky deputy has more than 4000 bitcoins.
 In Ukraine, laws on the regulation of cryptocurrency have not yet been adopted, however, about six different bills in the country's legislative body are very loyal to cryptocurrency, and some of them even establish the absence of taxation on the use and making a profit in cryptocurrency. Probably, Ukrainian officials do not want to complicate their life.

[aysg76]

 This is quite impressive that the politicians are holdings such huge amount in Bitcoins.But the main point is due to rise in prices everyone wants a share in profit and moreover politicians have funds available with them that can invest even at high prices to hold for the long term.We have heard many instances before Ukraine has come up with crypto related news related to holdings and bitcoin mining using nuclear power plant of the country.

19 year old Ukrainian politician holding $24 million in Monero

So we can't say who is holding btc from how long because everyday we came across news where Bitcoin adoption is witnessed.

[vintages]

There is a high chances that the figure is higher than it is stated.
Funny enough, it will be these same officials that will be say publicly that they don't trust bitcoin enough.
So behind close doors, they invest, then openly they say different things.

[Luzin]

There is a high chances that the figure is higher than it is stated.
Funny enough, it will be these same officials that will be say publicly that they don't trust bitcoin enough.

They are too smart for that.

No matter how they hide the proceeds of crime. I thought it would be found. Bitcoin owners can still be traced because they are not completely anonymous. Then the last news I know, Crypto in Ukraine is not regulated yet. But They will plan to start levying taxes on crypto. It is certainly great that they believe in the future of bitcoin and crypto so they dare to save and buy it.

[Vishnu.Reang]

If these figures are true, then Ukrainians may be one of the largest holders of cryptocurrency in the world. Imagine this. If the few hundreds of officials are holding such a massive amount (0.3% of the circulating supply), then the remainder of the population should be holding at least 10x or 20x of that number. So we can confidentially say that Ukrainians own 3% to 6% of the circulating supply of BTC. This is a massive number and may be higher than the same from other countries such as India and Taiwan.

[btc_angela]

Source: https://t.me/zedigital/654

Ukraine's Minister of Digital Transformation said on Telegram that 652 Ukrainian officials declared holding a total of 46,351 BTC. He commented that either they are lying to launder their money, or there are more progressive investors in Ukraine than he thought.

It's been known for a long time that some Ukrainian members of Parliament and other officials invest in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, but the full scale of it has never been known. It's possible that the figure is that big, if there are a lot of early investors, but it could also be like the minister said - an attempt to launder dirty money by presenting them as a profit from Bitcoin investment.

It's possible to buy some old coins that haven't been touched for years and their private key on OTC markets for some premium, transfer them to your own wallet, and then claim that you have owned them for years and even present a signature as a "proof".

Why should the ownership of coins by government officials, be any different than ownership of public citizens? Does the fact that those people are working for the government, make them more prone to financial crimes or corruption?

Bitcoin has seen phenomenal growth in the last 5 years and this is published widely on social media, so anyone with some money to invest, will skip the low interest rates given by Banks and Bonds and rather invest in something that will beat inflation. (Including government employees) 

That is debatable, I'm not really sure how corruption in Ukrainian is, maybe those officials are really into bitcoin investments early that they have accumulated so much.

I agree that bitcoin has a phenomenal run in the last 5 years, but you can't avoid the questions on how a public official, we are talking about members of the parliaments who dabs on bitcoin? I think there could be some red flag here.

But it will take a lot of investigations and blockchain analysis to prove it.

[buwaytress]

Probably lying to launder money. It's not a small number of coins, don't imagine they'd be sophisticated enough to hide those wallets. Really easy way to suddenly introduce millions of dollars in a suitcase and say, "oh, I just sold all my bitcoin on some marketplace somewhere, thank you very much".

Been seeing a lot of political videos from there of late, by the way;)

[Lucius]

So we can confidentially say that Ukrainians own 3% to 6% of the circulating supply of BTC. This is a massive number and may be higher than the same from other countries such as India and Taiwan.

You should take into account that Ukrainian politicians and ordinary people do not share the same standard when it comes to business opportunities and, more importantly, the amount of monthly income. The average salary in developed parts of the country is about $450, but that amount is much lower in less developed parts of the country. Usually in such countries, ordinary people do not have the opportunity to invest anything in risky assets such as Bitcoin, but it would be really nice if some of them managed to buy and save BTC over the years.

Therefore, I sincerely doubt that Ukrainians have approximately close to 3% of all mined BTC, let alone more than that.

[stompix]

I don't get the part about tax evasion
In theory, it could work if they suddenly declared they have 1000 BTC and they just sold them, here are my 60 millions in$ I made them from BTC profits from when I bought with 1$.
But, those reports are annual, in 2018 they had 21 000 BTC so if they acquire more they must have done it a x price, where did that money come from in the first place?

I would understand BTC being used as a mean of hiding bribes any official can basically print a QR code, flash it before the one that should pay the bribe, and then good luck for the police trying to prove that I own that address with all the money and that I demandED those in the first place. But after that, anyone would keep quiet about how many bitcoins they have.

Oleksandr Boychenko, a deputy of the Odessa regional council, who declared 5,750 bitcoins last year, dropped out of the top. There are no cryptocurrencies in his declaration for  2020 .

Infidel...

[bobyhodob]

This is the negative impact of one of bitcoin being one of the money laundering tools because of corruption cases so that they are not seen by people, they can live as if they are simple but assets are stored in the form of bitcoin.

[ranochigo]

North Korea and other nations with financial sanctions can run their bitcoin mining rigs. They will do it in secret but they don't lose anything when mining bitcoin. No data or article is available about this tactic but I think some are applying it.

I doubt it would really be worth it for them. Financial sanctions can be unforgiving for certain countries but Bitcoin mining would hardly contribute anything to their GDP. It would be tough to mine Bitcoins when your country doesn't even have a stable supply of electricity and your focus is on developing nuclear weapons. Training people for cybercrime is far more lucrative like what some of their APTs are doing.

If these figures are true, then Ukrainians may be one of the largest holders of cryptocurrency in the world. Imagine this. If the few hundreds of officials are holding such a massive amount (0.3% of the circulating supply), then the remainder of the population should be holding at least 10x or 20x of that number. So we can confidentially say that Ukrainians own 3% to 6% of the circulating supply of BTC. This is a massive number and may be higher than the same from other countries such as India and Taiwan.

Probably not. You're ignoring the fact that most of the expendable wealth are concentrated in those with power and the normal citizen probably wouldn't even use Bitcoin. It is not an accurate way to estimate Bitcoin's usage in a specific country.

[kryptqnick]

It seems to me that there are indeed many people owning cryptos in Ukraine, so it's a little bit of both. Surely, some of them probably followed the advice of their lawyers and declared their money as cryptos because you can always say that you bought early on and that's why now you have tons of money. A few years ago, there were already Ukrainian officials making such statements, I think. But there are probably also some people who have cryptos and don't declare them because they don't feel like it, especially since it's not obligatory. I mean, I was once just travelling in a local marshrutka, and a guy was casually trading coins on Binance there. We have more crypto users than catches the eye.

I don't get the part about tax evasion
In theory, it could work if they suddenly declared they have 1000 BTC and they just sold them, here are my 60 millions in$ I made them from BTC profits from when I bought with 1$.
But, those reports are annual, in 2018 they had 21 000 BTC so if they acquire more they must have done it a x price, where did that money come from in the first place?

Since declarations became a thing only years ago, and nobody's asking people to declare their cryptos, an official can always say (without providing any proof) that the cryptos were bought back in 2010 or something like that and that given that there's no crypto legislation in Ukraine, this person simply didn't declare them before.

[BrewMaster]

people in the government (no matter the country) know better than anyone else about the dire situation in the economy or the corruption that runs deep in the banking system. so it is not surprising to see many of them actually chose to have some of their net worth in bitcoin although i am a bit skeptical about the total amount that is reported here.

This is the negative impact of one of bitcoin being one of the money laundering tools because of corruption cases so that they are not seen by people, they can live as if they are simple but assets are stored in the form of bitcoin.

i don't think the laundry part has anything to do with bitcoin. they are just saying that some of these people who have some large sums of fiat out of nowhere are falsely claiming that it was bitcoin profit.