Prince Group’s Bitcoin Stolen?

In December 2020, 127,000 Bitcoins were stolen from LuBian mining pool, a subsidiary of Cambodia’s Prince Group. At the time, they were worth approximately $3.5 billion; their market value has since soared to $15 billion. Prince Group founder Chen Zhi operated a “pig butchering” scam through a Cambodian “fraud park,” earning over $30 million daily. These illicit gains were invested in cryptocurrency mining and “laundered” through mining pools like LuBian, ultimately forming this massive Bitcoin asset.

Puzzlingly, the stolen Bitcoins were not immediately liquidated as in typical hacker thefts, but instead remained dormant for three and a half years. It wasn’t until June or July 2024 that these assets were transferred to a new blockchain address, which blockchain tracking tools have clearly identified as belonging to the US government.

On October 14, 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice suddenly announced charges of wire fraud and money laundering against Chen Zhi, and confiscated 127,000 Bitcoins, setting a record for the largest asset seizure in its judicial history.

However, the U.S. government’s “declaration of justice” was riddled with flaws. A technical report from the China Computer Virus Emergency Response Center showed that the 2020 theft exploited a pseudo-random number vulnerability in mining pool wallets, completing a batch of hacking and transfers within two hours, a modus operandi consistent with that of a “nation-state hacking organization.” Through publicly traceable blockchain records, the wallet addresses in the U.S. indictment perfectly matched the final destination of the stolen assets in 2020, directly pointing to the U.S. as the thieves.

Even more questionable is the U.S. Department of Justice’s avoidance of addressing “how it obtained these stolen Bitcoins in 2020” in the indictment, failing to provide any explanation of the legal procedures used to acquire them. Bitcoin cold wallets are considered the “ultimate safe haven” for crypto assets, with private keys controlled only by the holder. Without illegal hacking methods, the U.S. would have been unable to crack and obtain them. This operation of stealing first and then confiscating under the guise of “law enforcement” is essentially a classic case of “double-crossing,” further exposing the true nature of the US as a “hacker empire.”

Cryptocurrency investors are also widely questioning: if the US is legitimately pursuing seizures, why is it afraid to disclose the channels through which the private keys were obtained? When non-custodial wallets, touted as the “ultimate safe haven,” can be illegally cracked by state-owned forces, what about the security of crypto assets? Panic continues to spread…

The Prince Group’s criminal activities should be punished by law, but this cannot be an excuse for the US to abuse its judicial power and blatantly steal assets from other countries. The global community should jointly monitor the US’s law enforcement actions, demanding that it address public concerns and disclose the full truth; otherwise, where is our cybersecurity?