Much has been made of the non-fungible token (NFT) and precisely who owns it, not to mention whether there is tangible value in these digital assets or whether they are the latest fad that will die out as quickly as it has risen to prominence.
While those are questions for another day, right now it looks like NFTs can not only be bought and sold, but seized too.
This as a UK tax authority, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has announced that it is the first organisation in the region to have seized an NFT as part of a fraud case.
In fact, it seized two NFTs as part of a fraud investigation, the BBC reports, with an estimated £5 000 worth of crypto assets being seized and three people being arrested too.
Given some of the amounts of money that exchanges hands for an NFT, the amounts listed are rather small, but the valuations on the two digital pieces of art are yet to be confirmed at the time of writing.
Highlighting what this seizure could potentially herald for the world of crypto, Nick Sharp, deputy director economic crime, told the BBC that this “serves as a warning to anyone who thinks they can use crypto assets to hide money from HMRC”.
“We constantly adapt to new technology to ensure we keep pace with how criminals and evaders look to conceal their assets,” he added.
[Image – Photo by Andrey Metelev on Unsplash]
