The Czech government has weathered a political storm this week, surviving a no-confidence vote triggered by a $45 million bitcoin payment from a convicted criminal.
The scandal has rocked Prime Minister Petr Fiala’s administration months before national elections, Reuters reports.
The payment of 468 bitcoin was made to the state by a man previously jailed for running a darknet drug marketplace called Sheep Marketplace.
The donation was accepted by then-Justice Minister Pavel Blazek, who later resigned amid the backlash, on behalf of the government. The bitcoin was sold for roughly 1 billion Czech koruna, worth around $45 million.
Opposition party ANO, which leads polls ahead of the October vote, filed a no-confidence motion and accused the ruling coalition of potentially aiding in the laundering of illicit assets, as the source of the BTC is unclear.
Critics say the government should have involved prosecutors or police instead of accepting potentially tainted crypto funds. After two days of debate, the motion failed in the lower house, where Fiala’s coalition retains a majority.
Still, Blazek insisted he acted legally in accepting the donation, which amounted to about 30% of crypto found on the man’s returned devices.
The donor’s motives remain unclear. The case shook the government of a country whose central bank earlier this year approved a proposal to study bitcoin as a reserve asset. Czech National Bank chief Ales Michl has even said bitcoin is not to be “lumped together” with crypto.
Polymarket traders are currently seeing the main opposition party, ANO, win the parliamentary election in October. Perceived odds of that outcome are currently at 92%, while Blazek’s ODS party’s chances stand at just 6%.