Bit2Me, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in Spain, has launched a dedicated company built to help courts, police forces and financial institutions trace, seize, store and eventually liquidate cryptocurrency connected to criminal investigations. The new unit, branded Bit2Shield, formalizes services that the exchange had quietly been providing to government agencies for years, and it arrives at a moment when law enforcement across Europe is struggling with a practical question that has grown alongside the industry itself: once you confiscate digital assets, who actually takes care of them?
According to a statement from the company, Bit2Shield has been legally registered as CryptoShield S.L. and will provide forensic and operational services covering digital assets from the moment they are identified during an investigation through their eventual sale when ordered by a court or another competent authority.
## From Extraction to Evidence
The unit’s scope goes well beyond simple custody. Bit2Shield teams will accompany investigators during searches and seizures, extracting information from hardware and software wallets, locating cryptocurrency holdings that suspects may have tried to conceal, and preparing digitally signed forensic reports that can be submitted directly into court proceedings.
The company says its work will also extend into fraud investigations, source-of-funds certification, and training programs for police officers, judges and financial institutions — a sign of how large the knowledge gap remains across the traditional legal system when it comes to onchain assets.
During 2025 alone, Bit2Me processed roughly 1.5 million euro in seized cryptocurrency on behalf of authorities including Interpol, Europol and the Spanish National Police. Before conversion, those assets were traced using blockchain analytics provider Chainalysis, and the exchange then converted the cryptocurrency into euros for the state.
## Custody, Multisig and a MiCA-Authorized Exit Ramp
Once digital assets have been located and seized, Bit2Shield will arrange their storage in cold wallets protected by a multi-signature setup. The assets can remain under that custody arrangement until authorities issue instructions for their disposal.
When a court orders a sale, Bit2Shield coordinates the process, but the actual crypto-to-euro conversion will be carried out through Bitcoinforme S.L., Bit2Me’s entity authorized by Spain’s securities regulator under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets framework. Proceeds from any sale are then transferred in euros to government bank accounts.
There is a deliberate regulatory boundary here. Bit2Me stressed that Bit2Shield itself is not a crypto-asset service provider under MiCA, because its activities center on investigations, digital forensics and training rather than regulated services. The conversion of cryptocurrency into fiat — the part that does fall under MiCA — stays with Bitcoinforme.
That distinction matters in the current European climate. The EU completed the final stage of its MiCA transition period on July 1, and the numbers that emerged were striking: only 281 of 1,343 crypto service providers operating across the European Economic Area had secured MiCA authorization by the deadline, leaving 1,062 firms without approval. Regulators’ interim registers, updated weekly, now cover custody, crypto-to-fiat exchange, trading platforms, transfers, order execution and portfolio management.
## A Broader Push Into Bank-Grade Infrastructure
The forensic unit is the latest step in Bit2Me’s expansion into infrastructure used by traditional financial institutions, running parallel to its retail exchange business.
In June, Spanish banking group Cecabank launched a regulated crypto platform for financial institutions after securing authorization for crypto custody, transfers and the reception and transmission of orders. Under that arrangement, Bit2Me handles trade execution, liquidity, market access and the exchange layer, while Cecabank provides institutional custody and banking infrastructure. Renta 4 Banco became one of the first financial institutions to use the platform as it developed crypto trading services for clients.
That project grew out of a partnership established in May 2024, with the MiCA-ready infrastructure announced in May 2025 while regulatory approval was still pending. Cecabank has since begun the European passporting process to extend its authorized crypto services into Ireland, Portugal and Luxembourg.
Bit2Me’s shareholder register reads like a cross-section of Spanish finance. Tether acquired a minority interest in the exchange in 2025 and led a 30 million euro funding round intended to support expansion in Europe and Latin America, following Bit2Me’s receipt of MiCA authorization. Bankinter, Unicaja, Cecabank and Telefonica are among the other backers.
## A Growing Niche: Police-Grade Crypto Custody
Bit2Shield is entering a field where police agencies have increasingly turned to specialized crypto companies to manage digital assets after seizure, because the operational burden is real.
South Korea’s National Police Agency, for example, awarded Upbit operator Dunamu a one-year contract in August to custody seized cryptocurrency after a public tender. Under that arrangement, confiscated assets are stored through Upbit Custody using offline cold wallets, with separate wallets for different asset types and security based on multi-party computation, distributed key generation and multi-signature technology.
Spanish authorities have faced the same issue at home. In April, National Police officers seized roughly 400,000 euro in cryptocurrency held in two cold wallets during an investigation into a manga piracy operation in Almeria. The cold wallets, in a detail that circulated widely, were concealed inside a wall-mounted thermometer. The platform behind the case had operated for roughly a decade and generated more than 4 million euro in advertising revenue since 2014; three people were arrested.
Blockchain tracing remains useful well past the moment of seizure, since transactions leave permanent records across public networks that can be followed long after assets change hands. What Bit2Shield represents is the industrialization of everything that happens after the tracing is done — the evidence, the custody and the liquidation — handled by a single MiCA-native group rather than improvised case by case.
For an industry often described through its fractures, it is another data point in the opposite direction: crypto infrastructure is becoming part of the state’s own toolset.
1.5 million euro in seized crypto processed last year for Interpol and Europol, and they were already doing it quietly before Bit2Shield existed. Spain is way ahead of most of Europe on this
and the MiCA split is clever. Bit2Shield handles forensics and custody, Bitcoinforme does the actual fiat conversion. keeps the regulated piece cleanly separated
only 281 of 1,343 firms got MiCA authorization by the july deadline. regulators are gonna love a MiCA-native seizure unit, count on it
a decade of ad revenue before anyone seized it. the tracing was never the bottleneck, custody was. at least Bit2Shield admits that part
1.5M euro for interpol AND europol combined sounds like a pilot program, not a national capability. spain is ahead sure but the numbers are still tiny
disagree, every forfeiture tool starts as a pilot. spain seized 1.5M in 2025 with basically no infrastructure, give Bit2Shield two years and that number triples. the court report pipeline was the missing piece not the budget
the almeria case with the cold wallets hidden inside a wall thermometer is my favorite detail of the year. wild that the piracy platform pulled 4M+ in ad revenue since 2014
the almeria wall thermometer detail is wild but the part nobody mentions is the conflict angle. Bit2Me traces the coins, Bit2Shield stores them, Bitcoinforme sells them. one group on every side of the table and the judge just signs off
the one group on every side worry matters less because a judge still signs off on every liquidation. bitcoinforme executing the sale under court order is honestly the least risky leg of the whole chain
the conflict angle is fair but the alternative is cops holding hardware wallets in an evidence drawer for years. pick your counterparty, at least this one is MiCA registered
1.5 mil in seized crypto for all of 2025 and Bit2Me spins up a whole company around it? the real money is in the training contracts with police and courts
training contracts are recurring revenue, seizures are one offs. of course they built the company around the boring part, that is where the margin lives
Andres has it backwards. The 1.5M is what actually got liquidated, not what sits frozen in pending cases across Spain. The inventory behind these seizures is far bigger than any press release
if the pending inventory is bigger than the 1.5M then liquidation timing becomes its own market risk. one court order dumping a stack of seized btc into a thin tape creates a second crime scene
second crime scene is exactly it. look at what happened when germany dumped its seized silk road btc way too early. timing the liquidation matters as much as the seizure itself and nobody in spain has that muscle yet
germany selling the seized stack at the local bottom should be framed on every european finance ministry wall. liquidation timing is a market function, not a court clerk errand
court-submittable forensic reports is the actual product here. cops have been holding hardware wallets in evidence bags with zero clue for a decade, someone had to build this
281 of 1343 firms cleared mica authorization and now one of them runs evidence grade custody for police. whoever moved first basically owns the entire niche in spain
first mover on the MiCA niche is right. 281 firms cleared authorization and almost none of them want to touch evidence custody, the liability alone scares them off. Bit2Shield basically has the category to itself for now
a piracy site pulling 4M in ad revenue since 2014 with cold wallets hidden in a wall thermometer. you genuinely cannot write this stuff
the thermometer thing is the best forensic detail of the year. meanwhile the actual seizure inventory sits in evidence rooms on encrypted laptops nobody can open, bit2shield will not run out of clients
Registering it as a separate legal entity, CryptoShield S.L., is the detail that matters more than the branding. An independent company means the exchange can not quietly reach into seized coins when it gets into trouble. That is the whole ballgame.
1.5M seized in all of 2025 and Bit2Me still spun up a whole S.L. for it. they are not selling seizures, they are selling the training contracts to every police force that suddenly has to deal with hardware wallets in evidence bags
training contracts and court reports are the recurring revenue line nobody models properly. the seizure inventory is just the customer acquisition funnel
evidence rooms full of hardware wallets nobody can open is such an underrated problem. half those devices are probably bricked already from bad passphrase attempts by well meaning officers