Odaily Planet Daily reports that the Cangshan District People's Procuratorate in Fuzhou revealed that a man was sentenced to 12 years and 7 months in prison and fined 300,000 yuan by the court for stealing four bitcoins from others and illegally profiting approximately 900,000 yuan; the appellate court upheld the original judgment.
The case revealed that at the end of 2020, Wang entrusted Lin to assist in converting his Bitcoin holdings into cash. During access to Wang’s Bitcoin wallet hard drive and computer, Lin stole the wallet’s private key and related data, transferred four Bitcoins to his own account, and subsequently sold them for profit. In 2024, after Wang discovered the irregularity in his assets and reported it to the police, Lin was apprehended.
The procuratorate stated that although current regulations explicitly state that virtual currencies do not have the status of legal tender, Bitcoin possesses value, controllability, and transferability, meeting the general characteristics of "property" under criminal law and thus qualifies as an object of property crimes; related infringing acts will also be subject to criminal liability.