The Czech government survived a political storm this week and survived a no-confidence vote caused by a $45 million Bitcoin payment from convicted criminals.
The scandal shook Prime Minister Petr Fiara’s administration a few months before the general election, Reuters reported.
The 468 Bitcoin payment was made to the state by a man who was previously imprisoned for running a darknet drug market known as the Sheep Marketplace.
The donation was accepted by then Minister of Justice Pavel Blazek. Pavel Blazek later resigned in repulsion on behalf of the government. Bitcoin is sold for around 1 billion Czech Koruna and is worth around $45 million.
The opposition party who leads the poll ahead of the October vote filed a motion for no confidence, denounced the control coalition for potentially helping to wash illegal assets due to unknown sources of BTC.
Critics say the government should have involved prosecutors or police instead of accepting potentially contaminated crypto funds. After two days of discussion, Motion failed in the House. There, the Fiala Union holds a majority.
Still, Blazek argued that he acted legally in accepting donations.
The donor’s motives remain unknown. The incident shook the government of the country earlier this year that approved a proposal by the central bank to study Bitcoin as a reserve asset. Chief of the Czech National Bank, Yale Mischur, even said that Bitcoin is even “collected” with the cryptocurrency.
Poly market traders are now seeing the main opposition party of October, ANO, win parliamentary elections. The recognized odds of the results are currently 92%, but Blazek’s ODS party chances are just 6%.
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