Despite being in prison, he still has not handed over the Bitcoin worth 1 billion dollars.

Yesterday, the crypto market collapsed again without any warning, with nearly $20 billion in leveraged positions being forcibly liquidated, far exceeding the $1.2 billion and $1.6 billion during the pandemic and FTX collapse in 2020, making it the largest liquidation event in cryptocurrency history.

At a time when blood flows like a river and wails of sorrow fill the fields, Silicon Valley investor Naval tweeted something that stings a bit and also douses cold water, but reveals the brutal essence of this game:

"Cryptography is... the desperate gambler chasing the first bag of money; investors footing the bill for the infrastructure of a global casino; bankers hypnotizing the masses to siphon off profits—without the cypherpunks guarding the dream of 'crypto, unstoppable cash,' all of this is meaningless and fleeting."

If Naval's words depict the emptiness of this game, a deep report from a former senior reporter at The Wall Street Journal reveals, in an almost brutal way, another world beneath the table - a world where what happens when the stakes are worth $1 billion and the "rules" on the table are completely torn apart.

This story has no financial model, only the most primitive violence. The protagonist is not a trader, but a fugitive entrepreneur; the opponent is not the market, but a billionaire and national leader who can deploy secret police and private jets to directly kidnap him from Abu Dhabi and throw him into a black prison back home.

It can be seen that when the absolute power of the old world sets its sights on the digital wealth of the new world, all ideals of "decentralization" appear to be vulnerable.

This is no longer the "meaningless" number game that Naval speaks of, but a physical plunder accompanied by "blood splattered in the cell." When gamblers lament, "Please cherish the current price fluctuations," this story will chillingly make you realize that what is more terrifying than prices going to zero is the power that makes you "physically disappear."

However, from another perspective, it also indicates that if you are tough enough to withstand the beatings in prison, then no one can take your Bitcoin away.

Below is the full text of the article published by this former senior journalist of WSJ in Wired magazine.

Someone Tipped Me Off About a Crypto Story. What I Found Was Crazy.

Someone leaked a cryptocurrency story to me, and my findings are astonishing.

Oct. 5, 2025

By Philip Shishkin

In late May, a fugitive entrepreneur who controlled a massive fortune in Bitcoin walked into the lobby of a hotel in Abu Dhabi for a routine meeting with a lawyer. A few minutes later, he was surrounded by a group of security personnel and quickly taken away by a convoy of two vehicles, ultimately blindfolded and stuffed into a secret private plane bound for his home country, Georgia.

There, he was thrown into prison and was asked to transfer his Bitcoin to the capricious billionaire master of that Caucasian country. To reinforce this message, a thug was sent to his cell and beat him into a coma.

This is at least the entrepreneur's own statement. According to him, this is the dramatic ending of his relationship with the Georgian billionaire. More than a decade ago, the two were on the same side. The young man named George Bachiashvili worked for billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, helping him manage his business and investments.

Over time, Mr. Ivanishvili almost completely controlled Georgia, while Mr. Basharashvili increasingly delved into the world of cryptocurrency, leading to a final rupture in their relationship. Today, they have become enemies, with one side seemingly trying to eliminate the other.

I worked as a journalist reporting in the region for many years and have continued to follow it since then. A few months ago, a friend of mine in Tbilisi mentioned this story to me, referring to it as a politically charged cryptocurrency heist. The more I investigated, the more I felt it was significant.

In the past few weeks, I have spoken with Mr. Bashashvili's lawyer, his mother, and others who know him. On the other hand, I have communicated with Mr. Ivan Nishvili's lawyer—he denied all the allegations and reviewed the case records published by Georgian media and supervisory agencies.

My findings reveal many aspects of today's world. This story is about an individual's control over an entire country, a process currently unfolding in Hungary and Turkey, and—worryingly—also happening in the United States.

It dramatically showcases the opportunities and dangers of serving an omnipotent figure, where absolute loyalty is essential, while personal initiative is punished. It also highlights how easily individuals can become pawns in geopolitical games.

But the most inspiring aspect of this story is the technology that underpins its core: cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin was created by Satoshi Nakamoto after the financial crisis of 2009, and their true identity remains a mystery to this day. It initially attracted idealists and libertarians, later setting a benchmark for the development of cryptocurrencies. Although supporters emphasize the advantages of decentralized finance and blockchain, the field is also rife with illegal activities, speculation, and obscure tokens.

More and more cryptocurrency tycoons are becoming targets for robbery and kidnapping, while potential dictators are also entering the game, especially U.S. President Trump, who has reportedly generated $5 billion in profits for his family with his "Trump Coin" ($Trump coin).

Cryptocurrency is the wild frontier of wealth and power, and it is at the heart of this crazy cautionary tale.

It is no exaggeration to say that Mr. Ivanishvili rules Georgia. He lives in seclusion, often occupying a mansion on a mountaintop, somewhat like the Supreme Leader of Iran, but without the religious connotations and formal title. Since his party "Georgian Dream" came to power in 2012, he has nearly consolidated complete control through election manipulation and sidelining opponents.

In this process, Georgia has transformed from a flawed democratic country aspiring to the West into a strange system essentially driven at will by a person who does not hold any public office, aligned with Russia.

However, by the end of the first decade of the 21st century, what Ivanishvili was looking for was a more ordinary role: an ophthalmologist. Mr. Ivanishvili's family fortune is estimated to be $2.7 billion, and at that time he had just returned to Tbilisi from France, seeking candidates to take care of his father and children, two of whom required specialized ophthalmic care.

He chose a highly respected ophthalmologist, Marina Ramazashvili. She is Mr. Bashashvili's mother.

During a visit, Mr. Ivanishvili chatted with his doctor while waiting for his pupils to dilate. She recalled mentioning her son and his work at the Booz Allen Hamilton office in Moscow, where he had grown tired of the stereotypical consulting job.

Mr. Ivanishvili asked her son how much he earned. According to Dr. Ramazashvili, when he heard the figure of a monthly salary of ten thousand dollars, Mr. Ivanishvili thought he was a "person of weight" and asked her to write down her son's phone number on a piece of paper.

Mr. Bashashvili, who holds dual citizenship of Georgia and Russia, soon joined Mr. Ivanishvili's vast cross-industry business empire. With a Master's degree in Business Administration from a top French business school, he quickly rose through the ranks and helped his billionaire boss sell his assets in Russia before Mr. Ivanishvili ventured into Georgian politics. When Mr. Ivanishvili became Prime Minister in 2012—he resigned from the position a little over a year later, preferring to rule from behind the scenes—Mr. Bashashvili joined his team as a financial advisor.

Soon, he began to help manage Mr. Ivanishvili's personal wealth. It turned out that he was very good at this, having led a global legal action to hold Credit Suisse accountable for negligence, as a financial manager at the bank had stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from Mr. Ivanishvili.

But Mr. Bashashvili has another important role: operating a flagship private equity fund partially funded by Mr. Ivanishvili, aimed at investing in the Georgian economy and attracting foreign investment.

It was in this position that Bitcoin caught his attention.

Although cryptocurrency was still an emerging niche industry at the time, Georgia was already home to one of the world's largest Bitcoin mining companies, BitFury. The company took advantage of the country's low electricity prices and open policies towards foreign investment, choosing to build an innovative data center in Tbilisi that used computers immersed in coolant to mine Bitcoin.

The open policy of Georgia is a political legacy left by Mr. Mikheil Saakashvili, the predecessor of Mr. Ivanishvili, who is now in prison, and whose charges are widely regarded as fabricated.

Under the leadership of Mr. Bashashvili, the private equity fund helped finance the expansion of BitFury. It was an exciting time. Val Vavilov, co-founder of BitFury, proposed the idea of putting Georgia's land registration information on the blockchain to create an immutable and decentralized record of ownership and transactions.

He once planned to join smart contracts, but ultimately failed to realize it. A smart contract is a protocol stored on the blockchain that automatically executes when pre-set conditions are met. This idea is very innovative and has even been specifically written as a case study by Harvard Business School.

Mr. Bashashvili has since become a staunch believer in the future of Bitcoin and he wants to participate in it personally.

"But if Bitcoin starts to drop, what does it matter even if they give you Bitcoin?"

It was in 2015, Mr. Ivanishvili was questioning his young assistant. From a transcript of a call I saw, Mr. Ivanishvili seemed unimpressed by the personal transaction that Mr. Bashashvili was conducting to rent mining power from BitFury.

But his subordinates did seize a good opportunity. Mr. Bashashvili took out a loan of 5 million dollars and added his own savings of 1.3 million dollars, ultimately obtaining more than 24,000 bitcoins. He sold about half of the bitcoins to repay the principal and interest of a loan from a bank owned by Mr. Ivanishvili at the time. By 2016, the value of his remaining bitcoins had approached 12 million dollars.

This is a high-risk yet extremely exciting gamble, which set the direction for Mr. Bashashvili's life for the next ten years. Through his company "Mission Gate", he became a global venture capitalist investing in technology startups.

He gradually distanced himself from Mr. Ivanishvili and eventually stopped working for him altogether. He began to have serious doubts about the new direction Georgia was taking under his former boss's leadership. In 2022, he publicly opposed the government's pro-Russian stance and condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine that same year.

Not long after, the Georgian prosecution suddenly decided to reopen the investigation into the Bitcoin transaction that took place nearly a decade ago. Mr. Ivanishvili claims that this young entrepreneur stole Bitcoin from him and should return it.

His argument is that the bank loan initially provided to Mr. Bashashvili entitled him to a proportional share of the profits. In reality, Mr. Ivanishvili wanted to receive compensation twice: once for the interest on the loan and once for the Bitcoin generated from that loan. This disputed Bitcoin is now valued at approximately $1 billion.

Mr. Ivanishvili may have been cautious about Bitcoin a decade ago, but he is now very interested in it. His lawyer told me that the 2015 recording suggesting Mr. Ivanishvili was skeptical about Bitcoin "is not real" and contains "editing traces".

But he stated that even if this allegedly altered version is true, it cannot overturn the fact that Mr. Ivanishvili should be regarded as the true investor who is the main part of this transaction. His lawyer wrote in a Facebook post that he is simply "demanding to reclaim the cryptocurrency that was illegally seized by Mr. Basharashvili."

The criminal investigation continues to escalate, and in 2023, Mr. Bashashvili was formally charged. He finds himself in a state of legal uncertainty. Meanwhile, Mr. Ivanishvili and the political leaders he personally selected have become increasingly paranoid about domestic and foreign so-called enemies.

After a controversial parliamentary election—where widespread allegations of electoral fraud and manipulation by the Georgian Dream party triggered large-scale street protests—Mr. Bashashvili criticized the government's repressive actions and defended the pro-European aspirations of the protesters, which undoubtedly added to his predicament.

By March of this year, Mr. Bashashvili's conviction seemed imminent. He decided it was time to flee.

One morning in Tbilisi, Mr. Basharashvili shook off government surveillance and squeezed into a small hiding place between the trunk and back seat of a deep blue Toyota Camry purchased specifically for this operation. (You can watch the reenactment video of his escape produced by the Georgian security services.)

According to investigators, a smuggler drove him unknowingly to a checkpoint bordering neighboring Armenia, where he walked into the country using his Russian passport. From there, Mr. Bashashvili flew to the United Arab Emirates, which he considered safe due to the country's reputation for a business environment friendly to cryptocurrency investors.

A week after he fled Georgia, he was convicted in absentia of theft and money laundering and sentenced to 11 years in prison.

In the UAE, Mr. Bashashvili rented a luxurious seaside villa on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, where his parents also came to meet him. He feeds the cats in the community and is planning his next move. His mother told me that he does not intend to stay long in the UAE and wants to go to Mexico via France. However, his attempts to leave from Abu Dhabi and Dubai were thwarted twice, as UAE airport officials refused to let him depart without any explanation.

Mr. Bashashvili was unaware at the time that a meticulously planned operation aimed at kidnapping him seemed to be underway. Around some time in spring, a Dubai entrepreneur named Timur Kudratov filed a complaint with the UAE authorities, claiming that Mr. Bashashvili borrowed over 500,000 USD from him and never repaid it. According to UAE law, an unpaid debt is sufficient to flag someone's name and prevent them from leaving the country.

Mr. Bashashvili stated that he had never met Kudratov and had never borrowed money from him. Upon learning of the situation, he immediately wrote to a local lawyer to clarify the matter. His lawyer said that the UAE authorities quickly dismissed the complaint, allowing Mr. Bashashvili to regain his freedom of international travel. But he no longer had time.

On May 24, Mr. Bashashvili left his seaside villa to meet with a lawyer at a nearby hotel. After the meeting, as he and his bodyguard were preparing to drive back to the villa, six to eight plainclothes personnel approached the car and demanded that Mr. Bashashvili get out.

They claimed to be personnel from the Abu Dhabi Criminal Investigation Department. Some were dressed in traditional Emirati attire, while others wore Western-style clothing, looking or sounding nothing like locals. According to Mr. Bashashvili's later account to his lawyer, some of them appeared to be Russian or Eastern European.

These people took him to the local police headquarters in two unmarked cars. This was the beginning of a two-day police "hunting trip," during which Mr. Basharashvili was taken to Dubai and brought back. In the end, he was handcuffed and shackled and taken to a place that appeared to be a private airport. He managed to move his blindfold slightly and saw the distinctive red and white colors of a Georgian plane. He told his captors that he was worried about his safety and life, but they ignored him.

He was escorted onto the plane, with the blindfold and restraints removed. He told his lawyer that he saw about five or six people and immediately recognized among them the head of the Georgian State Security Service and a former bodyguard of Mr. Ivanishvili.

When the plane took off, they warned him not to talk about the kidnapping situation so as not to cut off the possibility of future negotiations. He was blindfolded again, so when the pilot came out of the cockpit to use the restroom, he couldn't see the pilot. He told his lawyer that the rest of the journey was pure psychological torment.

Part of this mystery has become clear. According to a recent report by the Georgian publication "Business Media," the plane that brought Mr. Basharashvili back to Tbilisi belongs to Georgian Airways, and the transponder was turned off for most of the flight.

The airline stated to the publication that this is a private jet that anyone can rent, and the company cannot disclose customer information; Mr. Ivanishvili's lawyer stated that this Georgian leader never ordered or requested anyone to forcibly send Mr. Basharashvili back to Georgia. However, it is not difficult to guess who might be the mastermind behind it.

Why did the UAE allow and even seem to assist in this kidnapping?

One claim I've heard is that this Gulf country covets the top position in the United Nations World Tourism Organization, a position that has long been held by a senior Georgian diplomat. Indeed, ten days before Mr. Bashashvili was kidnapped, Georgia suddenly withdrew its candidate seeking re-election and instead supported a competitor from the UAE, who smoothly won the position.

The UAE's Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to requests for comment via email. The UAE Embassy in Washington acknowledged receipt of questions regarding this case but did not provide any response. If this statement is true, it would be one of the most bizarre reasons for assisting in the extradition of a fugitive.

When the Georgian plane landed in Tbilisi, Mr. Bashashvili was taken to prison, where he had a conversation with the prison warden. He was told that unless he handed over his cryptocurrency wallet and bank account to Mr. Ivanishvili, he should be prepared to encounter various crazy characters in prison.

He refused.

A few days after the warning was issued, a man entered Mr. Bashashvili's cell and beat him severely. It was July 11, just days before Mr. Bashashvili's 40th birthday. "There was a pool of blood in the cell, and the walls were also covered in blood," he wrote in a letter to his lawyer.

Mr. Ivanishvili's lawyer stated that the Georgian leader never ordered or requested anyone to threaten, extort, or beat Mr. Basharashvili. The Georgian government provided a vague explanation regarding this kidnapping incident.

"Even if we theoretically imagine such an action, it is completely within the legal framework," said an ally of Mr. Ivanishvili, the country's Prime Minister. "When a person sentenced to 11 years in prison is caught in such an action, the law has been enforced from start to finish."

The Georgian security services incredulously claimed that Mr. Bashashvili was arrested in the border area between Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.

Meanwhile, BitFury's data center in Tbilisi is now abandoned and idle. It is both the source of Mr. Basharashvili's wealth and the root of his misfortune. Over the past decade, electricity prices have risen, and the overall business environment in Georgia has deteriorated.

Furthermore, the industry itself has increasingly become commoditized, and BitFury has diversified from its mining operations in Georgia into other blockchain software and hardware businesses. The company has also adapted its liquid cooling data center concept, honed in Georgia, to serve the rapidly growing artificial intelligence market worldwide.

Mr. Bashashvili, who has suffered greatly in prison, has still not surrendered his Bitcoin.