Chinese Court Classifies Bitcoin as Property in Case Involving 107 BTC Theft

A court in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao found a man guilty of stealing 107 Bitcoin by remembering more than half of the 12-word password seed from one of his victims' wallets. As per the case summary published by the Supreme People's Procuratorate's official WeChat account, the Licang People''s Court sentenced the perpetrator, identified as Zhang, to prison and fined him CNY 100,000 which is about $14,700 (roughly Rs. 14 lakh) after it found that he took control of the victim's wallet and cashed out more than $97,000 (roughly Rs. 92.7 lakh). 

Prosecutors Argued Bitcoin Qualifies as Property Under Law

As per the summary report, Zhang was asked by the victim, Feng, to help him cash out 117 Bitcoin from his account in the month of July, 2023. Though Feng had written down his 12-word wallet password during installation, Zhang managed to remember 11 words and figure out the last one. China has had several prohibitions against the use of cryptocurrencies, particularly mining and trading. Nonetheless, according to the arguments made by prosecutors, the virtual currency Bitcoin qualifies as "property" and is prone to theft. 

When Feng found out about the missing Bitcoins and reported the theft, the transaction trail had already led to Zhang. Although Zhang confessed that he had transferred the Bitcoins, he maintained that he was simply protecting the Bitcoins and had not made any profit from them; rather, he suffered losses from trading them. However, prosecutors alleged that records showed Zhang earned $97,000 by trading BTC.

China is not the first country to advocate Bitcoin as property. In October 2025, India's Madras High Court officially recognised cryptocurrency as property under Indian law. Judge N. Anand Venkatesh's ruled that digital assets like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP can be owned, transferred, and held in trust. The case that led to this ruling, Rhutikumari V. Zanmai Labs Ovt. Ltd (WazirX), involved a dispute over 3,532.30 XRP tokens allegedly transferred without authorisation from the petitioner's account on the WazirX exchange. 

The UK government also adopted a similar approach when lawmakers approved the Property (Digital Assets etc) Act 2025, which formally recognised cryptocurrencies as a form of property. The new law gives cryptocurrency a clear position in disputes, enforcement actions, and recovery procedures by bringing it into line with other legally recognised assets.