The Mystery of the 190,000 Bitcoins in China
There has always been a rumor in the cryptocurrency community that various governments hold large amounts of Bitcoin. Among them, it is said that the U.S. government holds 215,000 Bitcoins, while China has 190,000, which certainly grabs attention.
These 190,000 Bitcoins can be traced back to the 2018 “PlusToken” scandal. At that time, PlusToken rapidly gained popularity in the cryptocurrency world by claiming to offer high-interest digital currency financial products, luring millions of participants, but it was actually a complete scam.
In 2019, Chinese police targeted this platform and quickly formed a special task force for investigation. The Ministry of Public Security acted decisively, arresting 82 key members and seizing 190,000 Bitcoins along with many other cryptocurrencies, with the total amount involved reaching as high as 4.2 billion dollars. These Bitcoins were subsequently claimed by the state and deposited into the national treasury, worth over 12.7 billion dollars at the current coin price.
However, the state did not hold onto them indefinitely. Various sources have revealed that at the end of 2019 to 2020, when Bitcoin prices ranged between 7,000 to 12,000 dollars, most of them were sold off. Court documents indicate that funds and profits were also deposited into the national treasury, indirectly confirming this matter.
At the end of last year, a prominent figure, after analyzing the addresses, claimed that it seemed there were still 15,000 Bitcoins and 830,000 Ethereum addresses that had not moved. If true, the remaining cryptocurrencies would have a market value exceeding 3 billion dollars.
