The UK High Court has delivered a major decision in the long-running legal battle over more than 61,000 Bitcoin seized by British authorities, ruling that Chinese law must be used to determine whether defrauded Chinese investors hold ownership rights to the cryptocurrency.
The October 12 ruling, published by the UK National Archives, centres on the Blue Sky Green case and stems from a large-scale fraud scheme run between 2014 and 2017 by Qian Zhimin, also known as Yadi Zhang, through Tianjin Lantian Gerui Electronic Technology. The operation collected approximately 40.23 billion yuan, equivalent to around $5.9 billion or £4.1 billion, across 128,409 investment agreements. Prosecutors say it functioned as a Ponzi scheme, with roughly 34.1 billion yuan paid out to earlier investors.
According to court filings, more than 100,000 BTC were purchased with investor funds through accounts at the Huobi exchange between June 2014 and June 2017. In late 2018, British police raided properties connected to Qian Zhimin and co-conspirator Jian Wen, seizing electronic devices and private keys. Those actions led to the recovery of more than 61,000 Bitcoin, now at the centre of an ownership dispute involving around 16,000 Chinese fraud victims and British prosecutors.
Mr Justice Turner ruled that the investment agreements, payments, fraudulent statements and initial Bitcoin purchases had overwhelmingly Chinese connections. As a result, the court rejected attempts by victims to rely on English property and asset-tracing rules that could have let them follow their money into the Bitcoin and potentially claim the cryptocurrency itself, including its price appreciation. Instead, Chinese law will apply to the ownership question.
The decision does not mean the 61,000 BTC will automatically be returned to China or directly distributed to victims. It only establishes the legal framework for the next phase of the case, leaving the final ownership and distribution of the Bitcoin still unresolved.
