China sold 194k Bitcoin from PlusToken

Crypto CEO Ki Young Ju estimates that Chinese authorities have already sold $20 billion worth of bitcoin seized from preschool in 2019.

In a recent jobYou shared Cryptoc Analysis of Plustoken’s bitcoin reserves that were seized by the Chinese government and where they may have disappeared. The chart shows the value of Plustoken’s 194,775 Bitcoin (BTC) Reserve, compared to the value found in mixers.

According to the data, JU believes it is very likely that the Chinese government sold the seized bitcoin. Despite claims by the Chinese Communist Party that bitcoin was transferred to the National Treasury, the government has not clarified whether it was sold or kept as bitcoin. Ju thinks it’s the former.

“A censored regime holding the censorship-resistant money is unlikely,” he said in his post.

In a separate post, the crypto CEO explained that Bitcoin funds seized from the dive scheme were placed in 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 were not planning to sell Bitcoin.

This is not the first time that China has been suspected of selling off crypto holders linked to the levy scheme. In July 2024, Chinese journalist Colin Wu alleged that the Chinese government sold some of the crypto seized through Beijing Zhifan technology.

Wu claimed that most of the confiscated BTC was sold between late 2019 and mid-2010.

Plusthen was a Ponzi scheme that was taken down by Chinese authorities in 2019. Authorities seized 194,775 Bitcoin and 833,083 ETH (Eth), as well as hundreds of millions of various other cryptocurrencies, including Ripple, Bitcoin Cash and Dogecoin, among others.

Up to 15 people have been convicted in the multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme that impacted around 2 million investors.

In 2021, China enacted a Complete ban on crypto trading and mining activities. However, the ban did not stop Chinese citizens from trading crypto as it is not technically illegal to hold cryptocurrency in the country.

According to data From the blockchain, from July 2023 to June 2024, the Chinese cryptocurrency market processed almost $50 billion in crypto trading volume.