Canada to develop repository for storing crypto and NFT seizures

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) is seeking for a digital asset solution to facilitate the seizure and storage of cryptocurrency and nonfungible tokens (NFTs). A tender was opened for applications on August 10. As the tender announcement goes: 

“The development of a centralized repository solution would allow police officers to seize these assets in a user friendly manner, while also offering significant security to prevent the theft of said assets during their storage.”

There are seventeen points, demanded by the RCMP from the future repository. Among them are the abilty to process transactions for the top 20 cryptocurrency blockchains by market capitalization and scalability to support new blockchains in the future. The RCMP also intends to grant access to its data for users who need it. As for NFTs, at this moment the police deems necessary to enable holding of Ethereum, Solana, and Polygon generated non-fungibles. 

Other features to be included in the repository consider the security issues, such as protection of private keys, secure disposal process and daily automated verification. A native mobile application will be developed on Android.

Related: Canadians have ‘weak incentives’ to use a CBDC: Bank of Canada

Recently Canadian law enforcement started using specialized software from Chainalysis to trace crypto while investigating cybercrimes. Local police now have the ability to trace blockchain transactions, identify suspects and determine where funds have been deposited.

Meanwhile, the number of Canadians holding Bitcoin has fallen from 13.1% in 2021 to 10.1% in 2022.

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