PlusToken

PlusToken launched in 2018 as a Chinese "high-yield" crypto wallet promising returns from exchange profit, mining income and referral bonuses, recruiting more than 2.6 million investors mainly in China and South Korea (Chainalysis says over 3 million across China, Korea and Japan). Chainalysis tracked roughly $2 billion in victim deposits; Chinese courts found 14.8 billion yuan (~$2.25 billion) was defrauded, while Chinese media reported total inflows above 50 billion yuan (~$7.6 billion). The scheme collapsed in mid-2019 when leaders fled; by mid-2020 Chinese police had arrested 27 alleged masterminds and 82 core members hiding in Cambodia, Vanuatu, Vietnam and Malaysia.

In November 2020 the Yancheng Intermediate People's Court in Jiangsu (after an initial district-court ruling on September 22, 2020) sentenced ringleader Chen Bo and 13 co-conspirators to between 2 and 11 years in prison with fines of 120,000-6 million yuan. The judgment disclosed seizures of 194,775 BTC, 833,083 ETH, 1.4M LTC, 27.6M EOS, 74,167 DASH, 487M XRP, 6B DOGE, 79,581 BCH and 213,724 USDT — worth ~$4.2 billion at the time — all forfeited to the national treasury.

Court documents show contractor Beijing Zhifan Technology Co. was engaged to convert seized assets to cash, and analysts report most of the bitcoin (~$1.3B at the time) was sold in 2019-2020; in January 2025 CryptoQuant's CEO argued all 194,775 BTC had been laundered through mixers and sold via exchanges such as Huobi. In August-October 2024, ~542,000 dormant seized ETH (~$1.3B) was redistributed to 294 wallets, with thousands of ETH sent to Binance, OKX and Bitget. As of 2026 China has issued no official statement on whether it still holds any PlusToken bitcoin; trackers such as Arkham list the holdings as unverified.

Sources: - [Chainalysis — The PlusToken Scam](https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/plustoken-scam-bitcoin-price/) - [CoinDesk — Ringleaders of PlusToken Scam Jailed for Up to 11 Years](https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2020/12/01/ringleaders-of-plustoken-scam-jailed-for-up-to-11-years) - [SCMP — Chinese cryptocurrency scam ringleaders jailed in US$2.25 billion Ponzi scheme](https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3112115/chinese-cryptocurrency-scam-ringleaders-jailed-us225-billion) - [The Block — $16 million worth of ether from PlusToken ponzi moves to exchanges (Oct 2024)](https://www.theblock.co/post/320365/plustoken-7000-eth-sent-to-exchanges) - [crypto.news — CryptoQuant CEO: China sold 194k Bitcoin from PlusToken (Jan 2025)](https://crypto.news/cryptoquant-ceo-china-sold-194k-bitcoin-from-plustoken/)

**Official action:** Nov 2020 convictions by Yancheng Intermediate People's Court (Jiangsu, China): 14 ringleaders sentenced to 2-11 years; ~$4.2B in seized crypto (incl. 194,775 BTC) forfeited to national treasury