An employee of a Shenzhen-based company, who disguised himself as an overseas hacker, was sentenced for extorting Bitcoin and USDT, with the virtual currency involved in the case valued at over 630,000 yuan.

An employee of a company in Shenzhen’s Pingshan District, who was in debt from online loans, stole the firm’s core R&D materials, then disguised himself as a foreign hacker to send a ransom email demanding 0.88 Bitcoin (BTC), 0.8 BTC, and 90,000 Tether (USDT) as ransom. According to *Procuratorial Daily*, suspect Jia exploited management loopholes at the company to download large volumes of R&D materials from its server and copy the files to his personal mobile phone. He then used overseas email accounts to fabricate a "hacker intrusion" scenario, pressuring the company by claiming the leaked materials would cause massive losses. As the company refused to pay the ransom and reported the case to police, Jia was ultimately sentenced to 3 years and 3 months in prison and fined 10,000 yuan for attempted extortion. During the trial, prosecutors ruled that while Bitcoin and USDT are not legal tender in China, they are virtual assets with property value. The involved virtual currencies, valued at over 630,000 yuan, can be used as the basis for determining the crime amount.