China has $3.9 billion worth of Bitcoin despite anti-crypto stance
CryptoQuant co-founder Ki Young Ju said the Chinese government is a crypto whale, despite its negative attitude towards the industry.
FUN FACT: China’s government🇨🇳 is a crypto whale.
Chinese authorities seized 194k BTC, 833k ETH and others from the PlusToken scam in 2019. They forfeited these assets worth $6 billion to the treasury.
FWIW, MicroStrategy has 130k $BTC. pic.twitter.com/Ilqp7EnenL
— Ki Young Ju (@ki_young_ju) 2 November 2022
According to Young Ju, China has $6 billion worth of cryptocurrencies — including 194,000 Bitcoin ($3.9 billion), 833,000 Ethereum ($1.2 billion) and several other unnamed digital assets — that were seized from the PlusToken scam in 2019.
The PlusToken Scam
The PlusToken scam was a Ponzi scheme that started in 2018 and had investors mainly from China and South Korea. Reports stated that the scheme had defrauded investors out of over $2 billion in digital assets in 2019.
The Chinese government secured the arrest of the operation’s masterminds, imprisoning them for 11 years.
Meanwhile, CryptoQuant analysis revealed that the fraudsters have paid out over 90,000 BTC using mixers through different addresses. The co-founder too tired that the malicious players were still active, sending 50 BTC to the same mixer last week.
Other countries acquire crypto through seizure
China is not the only country to acquire crypto through seizure. Earlier this year, the US Department of Justice seized $3.6 billion in Bitcoin linked to the 2016 Bitfinex hack. Before that, the government took 70,000 BTC from Ross Ulbricht when it brought down the Silk Road.
But unlike China, the US tends to auction off its seized crypto assets. As of February 2022, the US government has holder Bitcoin worth $4.08 billion.
The UK has also seized hundreds of millions of crypto assets, most of which are linked to various crimes.
Ukraine and El Salvador also have a share of BTC. The former mostly acquired its crypto via donations to support the country in the war with Russia.
On the other hand, El Salvador is the first country in the world to make the flagship digital asset legal tender.
Meanwhile, another notable country with crypto holdings is North Korea. Reports say North Korea-sponsored hackers have stolen up to $2 billion in crypto over the past ten years. The country reportedly spends most of its crypto holdings on its defense programs.
