A $5 billion Bitcoin fortune is at stake, but UK court says being defrauded isn’t enough to claim it

A London judge rejected Chinese fraud victims' bid to use English law to claim more than 61,000 seized Bitcoin. In an Oct. 12 ruling , High Court Justice Mark Turner sided with British prosecutors, determining that Chinese law must govern ownership claims over the cryptocurrency, currently worth approximately $5 billion. “The applicable law is Chinese law,” Turner wrote in the judgment, rejecting arguments that English property and trust principles should determine the investors' entitlement.