When Bitcoin prices fell from $31,000 to below $29,000, the total value of BTC held by China fell by more than $388 million to about $5.4 billion.
China’s Bitcoin Stash Dropped by $388 Million
Bitcoin is trading below $28,500 and looks likely to go lower considering the formation on the daily chart. With each tick lower, China and other countries, including Ukraine and Georgia, are losing money.
Bitcoin price on April 20 | Source: BTCUSDT on Binance, TradingView
The loss could be even greater for the Chinese considering their large BTC reserve, which translates to around 0.924% of the total fixed supply of 21 million, according to data from Bitcoin Treasuries.
Records show that China holds 194,000 BTC, 833,000 ETH, and a variety of other unnamed cryptocurrencies. These digital assets were seized from the PlusToken scam in 2019 and were worth over $3 billion.
FUN FACT: The Government of China🇨🇳 is a cryptographic whale.
Chinese authorities seized 194,000 BTC, 833,000 ETH, and others from the PlusToken scam in 2019. They handed over $6 billion worth of assets to the national treasury.
FWIW, MicroStrategy has 130k $BTC. pic.twitter.com/Ilqp7EnenL
— Ki Young Ju (@ki_young_ju) November 2, 2022
These assets were reportedly linked to the country’s public treasury. Still, some funds associated with the scam are reported to be regularly sent to blenders and settled at spot rates, affecting prices.
However, it is unknown if the Chinese government still owns these assets. There is no official Bitcoin address to verify the status of these coins.
PlusToken Scam was a global Ponzi scheme targeting Chinese and South Korean investors. It started in April 2018, taking advantage of unsuspecting people who thought they could make a quick buck from an investment opportunity.
All users were required to pay for the registration using cryptocurrencies, mainly BTC, before investing. The perpetrators said that they were developing cryptocurrency products.
Six Chinese nationals were arrested in Vanuatu and extradited to China to face the law in June 2019. A year later, China’s Ministry of Public Security said they arrested other suspects and recovered more than $3 billion in crypto assets.
America is a crypto leader
Cryptocurrency trading and related operations, including mining, are prohibited in China. Therefore, for now it is not clear if the Chinese authorities will “exchange” these cryptocurrencies for other assets.
The country banned trading in 2017 and mining in 2021, forcing cryptominers, primarily Bitcoin, to other jurisdictions. Since the ban, the United States has become the largest host for crypto mining operations. China accounted for more than 50% of all crypto mining operations at its peak.
According trackers, the largest public Bitcoin mining companies are located in the United States and Canada. Riot Blockchain is the largest publicly traded Bitcoin mining company with a market capitalization of $1.82 billion.
Featured Image from Canva, Chart from TradingView
This post His Bitcoin Reserve Just Dropped By $388 Million
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