Custody turns into theft, 900k exchanged for 12 years of prison food, no matter how you calculate it, it's a loss.

Wu Shuo learned from a report by China News Service that the People’s Procuratorate of Cangshan District, Fuzhou City, Fujian Province, has recently filed a public prosecution in connection with a Bitcoin theft case.

At the end of 2020, a man surnamed Wang entrusted a man surnamed Lin to cash out the Bitcoin he held and agreed to pay remuneration. However, Lin used operations on Wang’s Bitcoin wallet hard drive to steal the wallet’s “private keys” and related data, transferred 4 Bitcoins into his own name, and sold them gradually, illegally earning about 900,000 yuan.

In 2024, after Wang discovered his assets were missing, he reported the matter to the police, and Lin was subsequently captured.

The prosecutors said that although state documents clearly specify that virtual currencies do not have the status of legal tender, Bitcoin meets the general characteristics of property under the Criminal Law and falls within the scope of property crimes.

Lin was sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of 12 years and 7 months, and was fined 300,000 yuan. Lin appealed, but the Fuzhou Intermediate People’s Court ruled to dismiss the appeal and uphold the original verdict.