UK court ruling strengthens government’s claim to $5B in seized Bitcoin

The UK government just got a lot closer to keeping one of the largest Bitcoin hoards ever seized by a state. A High Court judge has ruled that Chinese law, not English law, will govern the property claims of victims in the Zhimin Qian fraud case. That matters because roughly 61,000 Bitcoin sit at the center of the dispute. The stash is valued at somewhere between £3.8 billion and £5 billion. What the court decided The ruling came from Justice Mark Turner around October 12-13, 2026. He determined that the victims’ property rights claims fall under Chinese law. The practical effect is significant. Victims now have less room to argue under English law for a share of the coins’ enormous appreciation since they were bought. Crucially, this is a preliminary decision. It does not settle who ultimately owns the Bitcoin. Instead, it sets the legal framework for the next phase of civil recovery proceedings. That phase will include expert evidence on how Chinese law treats these claims. The victims are not accepting the outcome quietly. Their representatives, including law firm Fieldfisher, plan to appeal the choice-of-law ruling, with that appeal expected to be heard in 2027. A fraud that ag...