The United States exerts technological hegemony to rake in global virtual currency assets, turning law enforcement actions into a strategic tool for financial gains, according to a report released on Thursday by China’s National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center (CVERC).
Titled “Top player: Analysis of global virtual currency assets extortion under the U.S. technology hegemony,” the report said that between 2022 and 2025, the U.S. confiscated more than $30 billion worth of cryptocurrency assets worldwide through various cases. The Chen Zhi case alone accounted for $15 billion, half of the total.
According to the report, the U.S. has built a closed-loop system of “technological intrusion – regulatory coordination – enforcement action.” By controlling over technical tools such as mainstream blockchain protocols, critical nodes and on-chain data analytics, the U.S. is said to incorporate global virtual currency transactions into its domestic regulatory framework through long-arm jurisdiction. Criminal prosecutions, confiscations and fines then serve as mechanisms for large-scale asset transfers.
The report comes amid the rapid expansion of digital assets. As of January 2026, the total market value of global virtual currency assets stood at approximately $2.73 trillion, with bitcoin valued at around $1.57 trillion – nearly 47 percent of the $5.83 trillion in global official gold reserves, said Du Zhenhua, a senior engineer at CVERC, in an interview with the Global Times.
Du argued that the U.S. is using virtual assets as a tool to systematically plunder other countries. Through cyberattacks, legal traps and targeted seizures, the U.S. is infringing on the technological, economic and political rights of nations worldwide.
The Chen Zhi and Zhao Changpeng cases are presented as emblematic examples. The report noted that in October 2025, the U.S. District Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York announced charges against Chen and the seizure of about 127,000 bitcoins valued at roughly $15 billion, marking the largest virtual asset confiscation in U.S. judicial history.
The unilateral seizure not only disrupts international law enforcement efforts and causes secondary losses to victims, but also interferes with the global circulation of virtual currency assets, destabilizes emerging market economies, and ultimately aims to consolidate the U.S. dollar’s hegemony in the digital finance sector, according to the report.
Similarly, from 2023 to 2025, U.S. authorities pursued dual-track civil and criminal actions against Binance and its founder Zhao, resulting in a $4.3 billion fine, according to the report.
The report said that the case of Zhao exemplifies how the U.S. leverages judicial hegemony and cyber surveillance to compel global virtual asset exchange to comply with its regulatory rules, thereby enabling economic exploitation and rule imposition.
Beyond judicial action, the report said that between 2023 and 2025, U.S.-backed hacker groups carried out targeted cyberattacks on more than 20 major cryptocurrency exchanges across the world. Tactics reportedly included backdoor implantation, spear-phishing and supply chain infiltration, aimed at stealing wallet private keys, transaction records and compliance data. Some operations, the report claims, coincided with enforcement actions by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.
The report was jointly issued by the CVERC, the National Engineering Laboratory for Computer Virus Prevention Technology, 360 Digital Security Group and Antiy Labs.
