China’s Ex-Digital Yuan Chief Took $8M in Crypto Bribes, Investigation Reveals
China's former digital yuan brainchild, Yao Qian, is now facing the music after raking in over $8 million in cryptocurrency...
Quick overview
- Yao Qian, the former head of China's digital yuan initiative, is under investigation for accepting over $8 million in cryptocurrency bribes during his time at the People's Bank of China.
- Investigators traced illicit transactions back to Yao's private wallets, revealing a complex scheme involving shell accounts and cash payments totaling at least 22 million yuan.
- Despite his attempts to conceal his activities, blockchain technology allowed authorities to uncover Yao's corrupt dealings, including the purchase of a $20 million villa.
- China continues to advance its digital yuan rollout, with significant transaction volumes, despite the ongoing scandal surrounding Yao.
China’s former digital yuan brainchild, Yao Qian, is now facing the music after raking in over $8 million in cryptocurrency bribes during his stint at the People’s Bank of China’s Digital Currency Research Institute. According to the state-run media, it turns out Yao cashed in on the very blockchain technology he helped develop – he used hardware wallets and secret addresses to keep illicit transactions under wraps from business people looking for special favors from the regulatory body.
Tracing 2000 Ethereum ( estimated to be around 60 million yuan at its peak) to one of those businessmen’s account back to a Yao’s private wallets in 2018 investigators found more then just crypto – they also found that Yao had been handed at least 22 million yuan ($ 3.1 million) in hard cash through shell accounts by another businessman – this really puts into perspective how complex and hard to uncover this whole scheme was.
Blockchain lets It All Hang Out – Even the Corrupt
Yao thought he’d covered his tracks well, but blockchain lets investigators see everything – even Yao’s efforts to stay under the radar only made his crime more visible. Now, with the help of blockchain, investigators have pieced together the transactions, seen how the money was spent, and how he used it to get corporate favors. In Yao’s office, they found 3 hardware wallets stuffed with millions of yuan in digital assets.
Hardware wallets disguised as TV remotes. A 20 million RMB villa paid for in Ethereum.
A "perfect" invisible crime. It sounds like a movie, but it was the downfall of CSRC’s Yao Qian. Watch how anti-corruption tech de-anonymized a 60 million RMB crypto bribe 👇🏻
Yao Qian was… pic.twitter.com/LlkGOKMZMH
— BlockFlow (@BlockFlow_News) January 15, 2026
- Yao used crypto to buy a $ 20 million Beijing villa.
- Yao’s network was so good that he used multiple shell accounts under relatives and intermediaries to round-trip the money.
- investigators found records of Yao taking 12 million yuan from a business person through an information service company and then using that money for regulatory favors
But here’s the best part – Yao had a perfect legit bank account – but that wasn’t enough for the authorities – they cross-referenced the banking data with government records, and suddenly a picture started to form.
How Yao’s corrupt network ran with the help of his underlings
Yao had help from his underling, Jiang Guoqing, who served as the primary middleman, sending crypto from business people to Yao’s wallets – it was all part of a much bigger picture to secure the favors Yao needed. In 2018, he helped the businessman with a 2,000 Ethereum transfer in exchange for some regulatory assistance.
Here are a few more ways Yao and his team pulled off their corrupt scheme
- lavish banquets on the taxpayers
- fixing jobs and buying things
- working with tech service providers
Yao was kicked out of the party in November 2024 and now faces charges – the authorities are saying that once the crypto gets converted to real-life assets, the curtain goes down on the whole operation – and in this case, it’s a shiny new villa with a $20 million price tag.
Despite the whole scandal, China is still pushing to roll out its digital yuan – they’ve even started letting people use interest-bearing e-CNY wallets starting this January. The e-cny has had 3.48 billion transactions worth 16.7 trillion yuan – but for now, it’s still playing catch-up with allpay and WeChat Pay
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