A report released by the Maine Treasurer’s Office highlights U.S. states’ interest in formally managing abandoned and recycled crypto assets.
Case evaluation Report Maine reveals state’s lack of preparedness when it comes to handling cryptocurrencies. It says:
“Our office does not currently handle cryptocurrency, but programs like unclaimed property may need to begin addressing abandoned cryptocurrency accounts.”
according to Maine currently has more than $328 million worth of unclaimed property, according to official figures. The website looks for the name, address and property ID information of claimants of unclaimed property.
The report also reveals the national treasurer’s interest in implementing reforms on emerging topics such as technology, ACH payments and cryptocurrencies. It states:
“While our current regulations and precedent elsewhere do not provide us with clear authority to hold cryptoassets we recover, we may wish to do so in the future.”
The issue of unclaimed cryptocurrencies is also a well-known phenomenon throughout the Ethereum ecosystem. In the summer of 2014, 8,893 people participated in the Ethereum (ETH) pre-sale event. However, nearly a decade later, millions of dollars in ETH remain unclaimed in these pre-sale wallets.
related: Illinois can claim ‘abandoned’ cryptocurrencies under new bill
Recently, Maine Wire reported that members of the Maine Democratic Party refused to return a $100,000 donation given to them by Sam Bankman-Fried. The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York is asking the political committee to return donations received from FTX after obtaining seven guilty verdicts in the FTX-SBF case.
In 2022, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase launched a tool that can recover unsupported ERC-20 tokens that were “erroneously sent” to the exchange address.
“Our recovery tool is able to transfer unsupported assets directly from your inbound address to your self-hosted wallet without exposing private keys at any time,” Coinbase said. “We do this by using patent-pending technology to send funds directly from your inbound address without processing funds through our centralized exchange infrastructure.”
The inability to recover cryptocurrencies sent to unsupported wallets has resulted in a growing number of unclaimed cryptocurrencies. Coinbase changes this by providing “the Ethereum TXID of the lost transaction and the contract address of the lost asset,” which can then be used to recover lost funds.
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