$6B scam accused in court, China loophole for Hong Kong Bitcoin ETFs: Asia Express

CoinMarketCap04-26

Our weekly roundup of news from East Asia curates the industrys most important developments. Chinese national accused of $5.94 billion scam in court Yadi Zhang, a Chinese national alleged to have ...

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overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\n$6B scam accused in court, China loophole for Hong Kong Bitcoin ETFs: Asia Express\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2024-04-26 07:54 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://coinmarketcap.com/community/articles/662aed37f7202410072aa3ff/><strong>CoinMarketCap</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>Our weekly roundup of news from East Asia curates the industrys most important developments.\nChinese national accused of $5.94 billion scam in court\nYadi Zhang, a Chinese national alleged to have ...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://coinmarketcap.com/community/articles/662aed37f7202410072aa3ff/\">Source Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","isBrief":false,"type":0,"news_type":1,"symbol":"BTCO","symbol_name":"Invesco Galaxy Bitcoin ETF","start_time":0,"source_url":"https://coinmarketcap.com/community/articles/662aed37f7202410072aa3ff/","article_id":"2430261567","we_media_id":null,"thumbnails":["https://academy-public.coinmarketcap.com/srd-optimized-uploads/85be4191592c4e07a20b7debbdafbb04.jpeg"],"rights":null,"url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=2430261567","pubTimestamp":1714089263,"sourceInfo":{"source_id":"coinmarketcap_highlight","name":"CoinMarketCap"},"weMediaInfo":null,"summary":"Our weekly roundup of news from East Asia curates the industrys most important developments. Chinese national accused of $5.94 billion scam in court Yadi Zhang, a Chinese national alleged to","collect":0,"end_time":0,"defaultTopTitle":"coinmarketcap.com","property":[],"viewcount":null,"language":"en","relate_stocks":{"BTCO":"Invesco Galaxy Bitcoin ETF","BK4585":"ETF&股票定投概念","BTCW":"WisdomTree Bitcoin Fund","BK4594":"比特币ETF概念","MVC":"MVC Capital Inc","EZBC":"Franklin Bitcoin ETF","BRRR":"Valkyrie Bitcoin Fund","IBIT":"iShares Bitcoin Trust","BK4588":"碎股","HODL":"VanEck Bitcoin Trust ETF","GBTC":"Grayscale Bitcoin Trust","DEFI":"Hashdex Bitcoin ETF","FBTC":"Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund","X":"美国钢铁","BITB":"Bitwise Bitcoin ETF","BK4520":"美国基建股","BK4006":"钢铁","BK4516":"特朗普概念","BITO":"ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF"},"translate_title":"60亿美元骗局被控出庭，香港比特币ETF的中国漏洞：亚洲快报","themeId":null,"isJumpTheme":false,"ttsUrl":null,"symbols_score_info":{"BTCO":1,"X":1,"MVC":1,"IBIT":1,"HODL":1,"GBTC":1,"FBTC":1,"EZBC":1,"DEFI":1,"BTCW":1,"BITB":1,"BRRR":1,"BITO":1},"content_text":"Our weekly roundup of news from East Asia curates the industrys most important developments.\nChinese national accused of $5.94 billion scam in court\nYadi Zhang, a Chinese national alleged to have scammed over 130,000 Mainland China investors out of 43 billion Chinese Yuan ($5.94 billion) and then laundered the proceeds using Bitcoin, has been apprehended by UK authorities. \nDuring her appearance at Westminster Magistrates Court on April 20, Zhang indicated through a translator that she intended to plead not guilty to two charges of criminal possession of cryptocurrency. She was remanded in custody.\nThere should be no rush to judgment in this case. Ms Zhang asserts that she is wholly innocent, her lawyer, Roger Sahota of Berkeley Square Solicitors, told the Financial Times.\nPreviously, her assistant, Wen Jian, a 42-year-old fast food worker in East London, pleaded guilty to charges of money laundering. In 2018, London police seized over 61,000 Bitcoin, now worth $4.0 billion, in a home raid where two women were living at the time.\nOperating through the company “Blue Sky Grid,” Zhang allegedly orchestrated one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in Mainland China with over 130,000 victims. Local news reported at the time:\n“Blue Sky Grid was established in Tianjin in 2014. With slogans such as environmental protection development, smart elderly care, and Bitcoin mining, the company uses zero risk and high interest rebates as bait, and conducts product promotion meetings, develops brokers, and courses and trainings, sign investment agreements with the public, and absorb social funds”\nWhen investors had earned “sufficient interest” and wanted to withdraw, however, things didn’t go well. \nIn 2017, faced with an uptick in redemption requests, Zhang reportedly fled China, first purchasing a Myanmese passport in the name of “Nan Yin” and using the forged document to obtain a genuine St. Kitts and Nevis passport through the country’s citizenship-by-investment program. Zhang then used the Nevisian passport to flee to the UK.\n\n\n  Yadi Zhang’s genuine St. Kitts and Nevis citizenship allegedly obtained through a fake passport. (Weixin)\n \n\nHowever, due to her lack of English skills and a disability from a previous accident, Zhang was unable to care for herself in the UK and needed an accomplice. Around this time, fast food worker Wen Jian, who was then sleeping in the basement of the East London restaurant where she worked, saw a caretaker job ad posted by Zhang and responded. \nThe two women quickly began a mutually beneficial relationship.\nUsing Jian’s UK identity, Zhang was allegedly able to open legitimate accounts at crypto exchanges and launder her investors’ capital by purchasing Bitcoin and cashing out to self-custody wallets. Meanwhile, Jian quickly adopted a lavish lifestyle, renting out a luxurious mansion in North London for 17,000 pounds ($21,277) per month.\nHowever, the saga came to an end after the two women attempted to purchase two historic manors in North London for a combined 36 million pounds ($45 million), but could not explain the source of the funds. This tipped off London police who became suspicious of money laundering.\nIn 2018, UK police raided the home Zhang and Jian and discovered 48 electronic devices including laptops, phones, and USB sticks allegedly used to launder funds into Bitcoin. By 2021, forensic police manage to decipher the devices and gain access to 61,000 Bitcoin valued at $4 billion. The whereabouts of the remainder of the stolen funds are currently unknown.\nIt is unlikely that Blue Sky Grid investors will ever get their money back. After the seizure, UK police have since applied for civil forfeiture of the Bitcoin, which means that if approved by courts, the stolen Bitcoin will be reverted to the UK government and auctioned.\nChinese nationals barred from Hong Kong crypto ETFs \nHong Kong regulators have made it clear that Mainland Chinese residents will not be able to access Hong Kong spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs after their April 30 launch.\n“No matter the virtual asset futures ETFs currently on the Hong Kong market, or the virtual asset spot ETFs that will be issued in the future, they cannot be sold to retail investors in mainland China and other places where the sale of virtual asset-related products is prohibited,” the city’s Securities & Futures Commission said in a statement. \nThere is one minor loophole however: The ban does not include Mainland Chinese residents who also have a temporary or permanent residence permit in Hong Kong. Interestingly, all three issuers of the Hong Kong spot crypto ETFs are Chinese off-shore asset managers, and their products are tradable in the Chinese Yuan. \nHowever, China’s anti-money laundering laws and Bitcoin ban, enacted in 2007 and 2021, respectively, would prevent its own citizens from accessing the ETF products in Hong Kong. In recent years, Chinese nationals have increasingly used cryptocurrencies as a means of online gambling, transferring wealth abroad, and laundering proceeds of crime. \n\n\n  The structure of Hong Kong crypto ETFs (Bloomberg)\n \n\n\n\n\n\nPhilippines SEC cracks down on Binance\nThe Philippines Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has called upon tech giants Google and Apple to remove crypto exchange Binance’s apps from the country. \nThe latest move follows warnings issued by the local SEC in November 2023 and a request to block access to Binance’s website earlier this year. “The SEC has identified [Binance] and concluded that the publics continued access to these websites/apps poses a threat to the security of the funds of investing Filipinos,” said SEC Chairperson Emilio B. Aquino. \nAuthorities have alleged that Binance offered unregistered securities and operated an unlicensed exchange within the country. The SEC had previously advised Filipino investors to withdraw their funds from Binance and instead engage with licensed service providers. \nBinance is currently the largest crypto exchange in the world, with a daily trading volume of $65 billion, covering more than 402 cryptocurrencies and 183 million users. According to the Philippines SEC, users won’t be guaranteed to be able to withdraw funds from the exchange after Binance is blocked by internet service providers (ISP) in the country, likely within three months’ time.\n\n\n  Read also\n \n\n Features Blockchain fail-safes in space: SpaceChain, Blockstream and Cryptosat\n\n Features South Koreas unique and amazing crypto universe\n\n\n\nBusy week for burgeoning Bitcoin DApp\nBitcoin DeFi developer MicrovisionChain (MVC), based in Singapore and Macau, has launched its first asset bridgeas part of its effortsto build a fully functional BRC-20 DEX that supports swaps and token exchanges.\n“The asset bridge addresses the issue of transaction congestion within the Bitcoin ecosystem, which includes BRC20 tokens, Runes, and other assets,” said Jason Kwok, COO and co-founder of MVC. “We are actively planning to collaborate with renowned custodial institutions and execute strategic campaigns to achieve higher Total Value Locked targets.”\nThe asset bridge allows users to swap Bitcoin and BRC-20 assets, with low price impact and instant transaction settlement times using an L2. To perform the swap, users must first wrap their Bitcoin so it is DeFi-accessible. The target asset can then be unwrapped for the respective native tokens post-swap completion.\nBlockchain security firm CertiK has since completed an audit of the MVC asset bridge. Moving forward, MVC plans to enact a Proof of Build model to incentivize ecosystem developers to build asset bridges, Bitcoin DEXs, wallets, and support for BRC-20 assets on the protocol. Under the proposal, 65% of its native SPACE token would be distributed to builds according to their respective contribution. The project currently has a diluted market cap of $300 million.\n\n\n  The MVC Bitcoin asset bridge interface. (X)\n \n\nSingaporean crypto exchange offers $100M to Titan Chain devs\nSingaporean crypto exchange Tokenize Xchange will pledge $100 million worth of its TKX tokens to incentivize developers to build on its native blockchain. \nDubbed “Titan Chain,” the project integrates interchain communications protocol Cosmos’ software development kit and compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine. “The architecture of Titan Chain includes reduced transaction costs, increased scalability, better energy efficiency, and a customizable, developer-friendly environment,” wrote Tokenize Xchange staff.\nThe firm will also migrate its TKX token, previously minted as an ERC-20 asset, onto Titan Chain starting April 19. Since its launch in 2020, the exchange’s token has returned nearly 1,000% and has a fully diluted market cap of $1.3 billion. The exchange was established in 2017 with over 350,000 active users. \n\n\n\n\n\n     Subscribe\n    \n\n     The most engaging reads in blockchain. Delivered once a week.\n    \n\n\n\n\n\n     \n\n\nEmail address\n\nSUBSCRIBE","kind":null,"is_publish_news":null,"is_publish_highlight":null,"is_publish_live":null,"is_publish_wemedia":null,"editions":null,"symbols":[],"gpt_button":1},"commentList":[],"isCommentEnd":true,"newsSizeData":{"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false},"APP":{"userAgent":"Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)","isDev":false,"isTTM":true,"deviceId":"web-server-community-laohu8-v3","version":"4.22.4","shortVersion":"4.22.4","platform":"web","vendor":"web","appName":"ttm","isIOS":false,"isAndroid":false,"isTiger":false,"isTHS":false,"isWeiXin":false,"isWeiXinMini":false,"isWeiBo":false,"isQQ":false,"isBaiduSwan":false,"isBaiduBox":false,"isDingTalk":false,"isToutiao":false,"isOnePlus":false,"isHuaWei":false,"isXiaomi":false,"isXiaomiWebView":false,"isOppo":false,"isVivo":false,"isSamsung":false,"isMobile":false},"href":"/m/news/2430261567"}