Their Bitcoin Stash just dropped by $388 million
As Bitcoin prices fell from $31,000 to below $29,000, the total value of BTC held by China was fell by over $388 million to around $5.4 billion.
China’s Bitcoin Stash Dropped by $388 Million
Bitcoin is trading below $28,500 and looks set to go even lower, considering the formation on the daily chart. With each notch lower, China and other countries, including Ukraine and Georgia, are losing money.
The loss could be even bigger for the Chinese considering their large holdings of BTC, which is equivalent to around 0.924% of the total fixed supply of 21 million, according to Bitcoin Treasuries data.
Records show that China holds 194,000 BTC, 833,000 ETH and a number of other named cryptocurrencies. These digital assets were confiscated from the PlusToken scam in 2019 and were worth over $3 billion.
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 reports, these assets were linked to the country’s national treasury. Still, some funds linked to the scam are regularly sent to mixers and liquidated at spot rates, affecting prices.
However, it is unknown whether the Chinese government still holds these assets. There is no official Bitcoin address to verify the status of these coins.
The PlusToken Scam was a global Ponzi scheme targeting Chinese and South Korean investors. It started in April 2018, taking advantage of unsuspecting people who thought they could make a quick buck from an investment opportunity.
All users had to pay for registration using cryptocurrencies, mainly BTC, before investing. Perpetrators said they were developing cryptocurrency products.
Six Chinese nationals were arrested in Vanuatu and extradited to China to face the law in June 2019. A year later, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security said it arrested other suspects and recovered over $3 billion of crypto assets.
The US is a crypto leader
Cryptocurrency trading and related operations, including mining, are prohibited in China. Therefore, it is unclear whether Chinese authorities will “trade” these cryptocurrencies for other assets.
The country banned trading in 2017 and mining in 2021, forcing crypto miners, mainly of Bitcoin, to other jurisdictions. Since the ban, the US has emerged as the largest host of crypto mining. China accounted for over 50% of all crypto mining at its peak.
In accordance trackers, the largest public Bitcoin mining companies are in the US and Canada. Riot Blockchain is the largest publicly traded Bitcoin mining company with a market cap of $1.82 billion.
Feature image from Canva, chart from TradingView
