A Shenzhen technology company employee identified only as Jia was sentenced to three years and three months in prison after stealing proprietary R&D data and posing as a foreign hacker to extort his employer for 0.88 BTC, another 0.8 BTC and 90,000 USDT, valued by prosecutors at more than 630,000 RMB, or about $87,000 to $88,000. The company refused to pay, reported the case to police, and authorities traced the emails back to Jia, who was also fined 10,000 RMB. In a ruling made public in August 2026, the Shenzhen court said Bitcoin and USDT, Tether's dollar-pegged stablecoin, qualify as virtual assets with property value, allowing the crypto demands to support an extortion conviction even though China has effectively banned cryptocurrency trading since 2021 and does not recognize digital tokens as legal tender. The case underscores both the legal recognition of digital assets in criminal disputes and the cyber risk posed by insiders with legitimate access to sensitive data.