UK court boosts government's grip on $5B seized bitcoin
A London judge says Chinese law governs victims' claims to 61,000 BTC, making it harder for them to claw back funds from a UK police seizure.
Chinese fraud victims can't use English law to claim 61,000 seized bitcoin after a London High Court ruling. That raises the odds the UK Treasury keeps most of the £3.8 billion haul.
A London court has handed the UK government a serious edge in a fight over 61,000 bitcoin seized from a convicted fraudster. The haul is worth about £3.8 billion, or $5 billion.
Why the ruling matters
Mr Justice Mark Turner of the London High Court ruled that Chinese law, not English law, must govern victims' property claims. The judge said the fraud happened entirely in China: investors handed over money there, the alleged lies were told there, and the economic damage hit there.
That matters because English law might have given the victims a clearer property right over the crypto. Now they can't use that route.
What happens next
The ruling does not decide who keeps the bitcoin. The Crown Prosecution Service says a further hearing will determine whether any victims can establish an interest. Victims' lawyers are appealing, according to the FT.
Zhimin Qian pleaded guilty to defrauding more than 128,000 investors through a Ponzi scheme between 2014 and 2017. She then converted the proceeds into bitcoin and fled to Britain in 2017.
Across the Atlantic, the US already treats seized crypto as part of its strategic bitcoin reserve. Arkham Intelligence says addresses linked to the US government hold $25.8 billion in crypto.
The takeaway: London has made it much harder for Chinese fraud victims to use English courts to reclaim 61,000 bitcoin from a UK police seizure.
Summary written by Oh Cannot from the original report by CoinDesk. Not financial advice.
