China's diehard crypto fans lash out at scams, lament losses as price plunge bites

China has a booming cryptocurrency space, with start-ups involved in everything from wallet apps to blockchain protocols.

There are many ways to measure the bursting of the cryptocurrency bubble last year: Bitcoin was down 80% from its peak; over 900 digital tokens became worthless; the vapourised value of digital assets exceeded US$600bil (RM2.4tril).

Some metrics are more personal and show the pain felt by those on the ground who helped inflate the bubble. Over the past year Michael Zhang, a 26-year-old telecommunications engineer based in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, put 40,000 yuan (RM24,000) into cryptocurrencies, only to see his investment shrink to one eighth of it original value.