- Chinese man’s $10M loss as court says Bitcoin lending not protected by law
- China’s disappearing Web3 founders
Huobi in trouble once againEverything is just fine
A man in China’s Jiangsu province, identified as Mr. Xu, appears to be out of luck after a court ruled that his 341 Bitcoin loan ($9.9 million) to counterparty Mr. Lin is not protected by law according to local news reports on August 3.
Mr. Xu lent 341 Bitcoins to Mr. Lin after the latter approached him for a peer-to-peer loan. The loan was made using Bitcoin since Mr. Xu lacked fiat funds. However, Mr. Lin defaulted on the loan and Mr. Xu sued him, but the court dismissed the case.
In another ruling dated Nov. 29, the Hangzhou Internet Court stated that digital assets such as nonfungible tokens are “online virtual property” that should be protected under Chinese law.
In a separate incident, Chinese cross-chain bridge Multichain saw its reputation take a hit due to the disappearance of its co-founder, Zhaojun He. The protocol had around $1.5 billion in total value locked at the start of July.
Investors’ worst fears came true after Multichain developers revealed that Zhaojun had been arrested by Chinese police. The protocol had to be shut down as Zhaojun held discretionary control of Multichain’s entire server-based and private keys.
There are swirling rumors around Huobi, with reports of senior executives being arrested by Chinese police. Huobi denied this as “fake news,” but some Huobi staff are reportedly under criminal investigation.
According to Huobi owner Justin Sun, the exchange generated more than $85 million in profits in Q2 2023, with $100 million projected for Q3 2023. However, rumors may have affected Huobi’s USDT reserves, which declined to less than $100 million from $630 million last month.
