- According to Cryptoquant, the Chinese govt is a crypto whale.
- PlusToken attracted mostly Chinese and South Korean investors.
- China is not the first state to hold digital assets through seizures.
The Chinese government is a crypto whale, according to Ki Young Ju, co-founder of CryptoQuant, despite its hostile attitude toward the sector.
Young Ju claims that China seized $6 billion worth of cryptocurrencies from the PlusToken fraud in 2019. This included 194,000 Bitcoin ($3.9 billion), 833,000 Ethereum ($1.2 billion), and many other undisclosed digital assets.
2018 saw the start of the Ponzi scheme known as PlusToken, which attracted mostly Chinese and South Korean investors. According to reports, the scam defrauded investors of more than $2 billion in digital assets in 2019.
The leaders of the operation were apprehended by the Chinese authorities and were sentenced to 11 years in prison.
The crooks paid out over 90,000 BTC utilizing mixers through numerous addresses, according to CryptoQuant data. The bad gamers are still active, according to the co-founder, since they sent 50 BTC to the same mixer the previous week.
It is crucial to keep in mind that the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) outlawed all cryptocurrency transactions in late September 2021.
Due to their highly speculative character, cryptocurrencies have been linked to financial crime and are posing an increasing risk to China’s financial system, according to a PBOC report last year. A second potential explanation for the cryptocurrency prohibition, though, is an effort to stop money outflow from China.
Notably, China is not the first state to hold digital assets through seizures. Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency assets have also been confiscated in the U.K., most of which are linked to different offenses.
A portion of Bitcoin is also held by Ukraine and El Salvador. The former largely obtained its cryptocurrency from contributions to aid the nation in its conflict with Russia. El Salvador, on the other hand, is the first nation to declare the leading digital asset legal tender.
