China’s Government May Have Sold Seized Bitcoin Worth $20 Billion

CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju has suggested that the Chinese authorities may have sold $20 billion worth of Bitcoin seized from the PlusToken scheme in 2019.

Analysis of PlusToken’s Bitcoin Reserves

Ju shared CryptoQuant’s analysis on PlusToken’s Bitcoin reserves, which were seized by the Chinese government. The data shows the value of PlusToken’s 194,775 Bitcoin reserves compared to the value found within mixers.

According to the data, Ju believes that it is most likely that China’s government has sold the seized Bitcoin. Despite claims from the Chinese Communist Party that the Bitcoin trove has been moved to the national treasury, the government did not clarify whether it was sold or kept as Bitcoin.

A censored regime holding censorship-resistant money feels unlikely.

Seized Bitcoin Funds Put into Mixers

In a separate post, Ju explained that the seized Bitcoin funds from the PlusToken scheme were put into mixers and sent to several Chinese exchanges like Huobi. As a result, Ju concluded that Chinese authorities would not have bothered to use mixers or multiple exchanges if they weren’t planning on selling the Bitcoin.

Previous Allegations of Sold Crypto Holdings

This is not the first time China was suspected to have sold crypto holdings connected to the PlusToken scheme. In July 2024, Chinese journalist Colin Wu alleged that the Chinese government sold some of the seized crypto through Beijing Zhifan Technology. Wu claimed that most of the confiscated BTC were sold between late 2019 and mid-2020.

PlusToken Ponzi Scheme

PlusToken was a Ponzi scheme that was dismantled by the Chinese authorities in 2019. Authorities seized 194,775 Bitcoin and 833,083 ETH, as well as hundreds of millions worth of various other cryptocurrencies, including Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, and Dogecoin among others.

As many as 15 individuals were convicted in the multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme which impacted around 2 million investors.

China’s Crypto Ban

In 2021, China enacted a full ban on crypto trading and mining activities. Though, the ban has not stopped Chinese citizens from trading crypto since it is technically not illegal to hold cryptocurrency in the country.

According to data, from July 2023 until June 2024, the Chinese cryptocurrency market has processed nearly $50 billion in crypto transaction volume.

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