Recently, the old news about Plustoken has been resurfaced, and it’s still quite noteworthy. On August 7th, a wallet that had been dormant for over three years suddenly started transferring Ethereum, which caused the market to explode at the time, claiming involvement of 789,533 ETH, roughly valued at nearly $2 billion. It sounds truly alarming, but later on, on-chain analysts took a closer look and found that most of the funds related to Plustoken had already been processed back in 2021, with only 25,757 ETH remaining now, which slightly eased market sentiment.
Speaking of the Plustoken case, we need to go back in time. When it was launched in May 2018, it claimed to be a “smart arbitrage” and cross-chain wallet, using slogans like “King of Coins” and “Thousandfold Coins” to attract investors. Within a year, it had amassed 2.7 million registered members. Later, starting June 2019, withdrawals became difficult, and the platform had actually collapsed. This was a classic Ponzi scheme, with the involved amount estimated between $2 billion and $2.9 billion.
How was the funds handled? Plustoken mainly laundered money through over-the-counter trading and mixing services, with some used to purchase real estate and luxury cars. During that wave in 2020, 789.5k ETH were transferred out from wallets and dispersed into hundreds of intermediary addresses. By mid to late 2021, these ETH were again funneled through a bankrupt exchange into a major trading platform. Just from a few deposit addresses, over 260,000 ETH were transferred in.
Law enforcement ultimately seized a staggering amount of cryptocurrency, including 194,775 BTC, 833,083 ETH, 1.4 million LTC, 27.6 million YFI, 74,167 DASH, 487 million XRP, 6 billion DOGE, 79,581 BCH, and 213,724 USDT, with a total value exceeding 15 billion yuan. In November 2020, the Intermediate People’s Court of Yancheng, Jiangsu, sentenced that these funds were ultimately confiscated and turned over to the state treasury.
Now, there’s activity again in the Plustoken wallets. Based on on-chain data, it’s likely operated by individuals who have already served their sentences in the case. This incident actually reflects an early phenomenon in the crypto market—many investors suffered heavy losses in Ponzi schemes. If we compare today’s crypto industry to the gold rush era, there are indeed many opportunities, but the premise is to protect your assets well and avoid falling into similar traps. Investors need to stay vigilant and ensure asset security to truly enjoy the benefits of this era.
