Surprisingly, the Chinese government holds $6 billion worth of crypto despite banning crypto operations in the country.
The CEO and co-founder of CryptoQuant, Ki Young Ju, made this known in a tweet.
He noted that China is a crypto whale that owns 194,000 Bitcoin ($3.9B), 833,000 Ethereum ($1.2B), and some other unnamed cryptos.
It is believed that the country acquired these digital assets after shutting down the PlusToken scam in 2019.
Recall that the PlusToken scam started in 2018 and had many investors, particularly from China and South Korea. The platform employed blockchain technology to lure millions of people who were asked to pay their membership fees in cryptocurrencies. It also offered high investment returns based on the number of members recruited and investment amount.
The platform was regarded as a classical Ponzi scheme that generated millions of returns for its investors with no real business structure. However, PlusToken crashed in 2019 when the Chinese authorities went after its ringleaders, and the Chinese court sentenced them to 11 years imprisonment.
The Chinese government seized the money made by the platform and all the cryptocurrencies in circulation. At the time of their arrested, they had already defrauded its users of about $2.25 billion.
However, an analysis performed by CryptoQuant shows that the scammers have retrieved about 90,000 BTC using mixers through different addresses.
Ki Young Ju stated,
“PlusToken-related MFers who used the same mixer are still sending $BTC to exchanges, for example, 50 BTC a week ago.”
It is worth knowing that China is one of many counties that acquires cryptos or digital assets by seizures. Earlier this year, the US Department of Justice seized $3.6 billion worth of Bitcoin linked to the 2016 Bitfinex hack.
Countries like Ukraine and El Salvador are also on the same page. Ukraine acquires most of its cryptocurrencies through donations that support the country in the war with Russia.
