The UK High Court has ruled that Chinese law governs claims to more than 61,000 BTC, valued at approximately $5 billion. This decision makes it harder for the roughly 16,000 victims of Zhimin Qian’s Ponzi scheme to recover their losses, as they must now prove a proprietary interest in the Bitcoin under Chinese legal standards rather than simply filing a creditor claim. The fraudulent scheme operated from 2014 to 2017 through a company based in Tianjin, China, causing combined losses of approximately GBP 4.1 billion to mostly Chinese investors. Qian was sentenced in November 2025 to 11 years and 8 months in prison for money laundering. Upcoming hearings will examine how Chinese property rights apply in this context.
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