China ousts former digital currency chief over alleged corruption involving crypto

Yao Qian — a former influential figure in China’s blockchain industry and ex-head of the central bank’s digital currency institute — has been expelled from the Communist Party of China and removed from public office over alleged corruption with cryptocurrency involved.

The country’s anti-graft authorities announced today that Yao has “seriously violated discipline and law” and falsely presented himself as a financial technology expert while “sparing no effort to support specific technology service providers for personal gain.”

The authorities also accused Yao of abusing his regulatory power and using cryptocurrency for power-for-money deals. Yao was found to have illegally accepted an “extraordinarily large amount” of funds and assets. The authorities did not disclose the size of the alleged illicit gains.

Yao’s alleged criminal activities have been referred to prosecutorial authorities for further review and potential prosecution, according to the announcement.

Yao previously served as the head of the technology regulation department of the China Securities Regulatory Commission. In April, he published an opinion article titled “Warnings Mount Over Novel Bitcoin ETFs That Have Taken the U.S. by Storm” on Caixin, a Chinese financial news outlet.

Born in 1970, Yao was appointed as the first head of the central bank’s digital currency research institute in 2017. He then moved from the central bank to the country’s securities regulator in 2018.

Yao had actively engaged in discussions related to blockchain technology and published a book in 2022 covering topics including DAO, DeFi, NFT and X-to-earn. “Web 3.0 innovation has become a development direction that countries are highly concerned with and value,” he noted in the book’s foreword.