Studies: 2024 China's overall situation and regulatory trend of virtual currency crimes

Author : Sun Jun Lawyer Team

In early January 2025, the Ministry of Public Security held a special press conference in Beijing on January 10. Zhang Ming, a spokesman for the Ministry of Public Security, introduced: The fraud group uses new technologies such as blockchain, virtual currency, AI intelligence to continuously update and upgrade criminal tools Essence In response to the severe and complicated criminal situation of electrical fraud involved in virtual currency, public security organs will deeply promote special actions such as "cloud sword", "broken flow" and "nailing", and continue to maintain a high -voltage trend. Immediately after January 13, the Supreme Procuratorate of the National Prosecutor's Meeting emphasized that the procuratorial organs will increase the punishment of money laundering crimes and crack down on the use of virtual currencies to illegally transfer asset crimes to overseas assets.

It can be seen that although my country has adopted strict supervision and blow -to -war attitude towards virtual currency platform transactions and investment in recent years, related illegal financial activities have been transferred from offline to online, and they have shifted from home to overseas, and they have developed rampantly in a more hidden form. At the same time, based on the characteristics of virtual currency itself and unparalleled alignment, virtual currency has developed rapidly into a new type of criminal tool. In this context, virtual currency crimes have become the most typical problem in the field of cyber crime.

The end of the year has arrived. On the occasion of the New Year, the team wrote this article specially to the overall situation of virtual currency crimes in 2024, the latest developments of national supervision, cracking down on virtual currency illegal activities, and practice of virtual currency itself in practice. The latest trends of attribute identification are organized and summarized.

1. The overall situation involved in virtual currency crimes in 2024

Regarding the virtual currency crime that occurred in 2024, due to the too close of the year, many cases are still in the trial stage and other reasons, and the overall data has not been announced. However, the author's team used virtual currencies, criminal, and judgment as the keywords to search on the Weiko Pioneer Pioneer Pioneer, and received a total of 401 criminal judgments, including 386 judgments in the first instance and 15 second trial judgments. Based on these cases, this article conducts a preliminary analysis of the overall situation of virtual currency involved in virtual currencies in 2024. There may be inaccurate data statistics and results analysis of the case, please forgive me.

From the perspective of the retrieved case data, the number of cases in Henan Province was the largest in 2024, followed by Hunan and Shaanxi Province, and then Shanghai, Jiangxi Province, and Hebei Province.

From the perspective of the case, compared with the past years due to the ICO activities, a large number of virtual currency crimes are concentrated in the field of destroying the socialist market economy order. In 2024, more crimes involving virtual currency were concentrated in the field of crime involving the order of obstructing social management. The more prominent criminal behavior focused on the crime of obstructing social management order, accounting for 61.87%. In addition, the crime of violations of property, as always, is a high incidence of virtual currency crimes, accounting for 31.2%.

In the crime of obstructing social management order, specifically, the most proportion of cases involving the crime of obstructing judicially, a total of 122 cases, accounting for 52.36%. Essence

In addition, in the crime of obstructing the order of social management, the number of cases involving the crime of disrupting public order accounted for the second, a total of 108 cases, including 57 crime of helping information network crimes, 39 crimes on casino, illegal use of information network crimes 10 One piece, 1 piece of gambling, illegally obtaining computer information system data and illegal control of computer information system crimes.

**2. The latest developments in China's regulatory and cracking down on

virtual currency illegal activities in 2024**

In 2024, my country mainly focused on foreign exchange crimes and money laundering crimes, and strengthened the attention and crackdown on criminal related behaviors with virtual currency as a criminal instrument. The following will combine the new rules and typical cases issued by the relevant illegal crimes in 2024 to understand how virtual currencies are used to use illegal exchange and money laundering and other illegal crimes, and the main points of identification of criminal establishment in judicial practice.

(1) Use virtual currency to engage in criminal activities of illegal exchange exchange

On December 11, 2023, the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange jointly issued eight typical cases of punishment of foreign exchange illegal crimes, mainly involving (illegal trading foreign exchange type) illegal business crimes and fraudulent purchase of foreign exchange. The crime of information network crime, defrauding export tax refund, and dedicated VAT invoices. Among them, the realization of virtual currencies as the medium to realize the exchange of RMB and foreign exchange, which has become a frequent and extremely prominent type of exchange exchange model in the fields of illegal trading and selling foreign exchange violations in recent years. In addition, in order to better coordinate development and security, ensure the facilitation of cross -border trade and investment and financing, prevent and curb foreign exchange illegal activities, and maintain the order of the foreign exchange market, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange released on December 27, 2024 Management measures for transaction reports (trial) ". Among them, Article 3 clearly lists illegal cross -border financial activities of virtual currencies as foreign exchange risk trading behaviors, and requires banks to monitor and report risk monitoring and reports on domestic/ foreign institutions and personal customers involving such activities.

In the case of virtual currency engaged in illegal exchange criminal activities, the actor usually collects the RMB of customers in the country, and then deposits the equivalent foreign exchange into the overseas bank account designated by customers. It is not a direct sale of RMB and foreign exchange, but essentially a behavior of buying and selling foreign exchange. Common funds for multinational (border) payment refers to colluding with criminals with foreign personnel, enterprises, institutions, or use bank accounts that are open abroad to assist others on cross -border remittance and transfer capital activities. Such underground banks are also known as the "knock -knocking" underground money house, that is, funds implement unidirectional circulation at home and abroad, without physical flow, usually in the form of reconciliation to achieve "two ground balances." In this model, the RMB and foreign currencies do not have a physical cross -border circulation. Therefore, on the surface, funds circulate unilaterally at home and abroad. However, such activities are essentially disguised trading foreign exchange behaviors, and they still have the harm of disrupting the normal order of the foreign exchange market.

With the development of blockchain technology in recent years and the popularization of virtual currencies derived from blockchain technology, its economic value has been widely recognized, and it is allowed as a payment tool in more and more countries and regions. Give full play to the function of legal currency. In this context, the realization of virtual currencies as the medium to realize the exchange of RMB and foreign exchange, which has become a frequent and extremely prominent type of exchange exchange model in the field of illegal trading and selling foreign exchange violations in recent years.

Typical case 1:

From February 2019 to April 2020, Zhao organized Zhao Moupeng, Zhou Moukai and others to provide exchange and payment services for foreign currency Diram and RMB in the United Arab Emirates and domestic. The gang collected Diram cash in Dubai, UAE, at the same time transferred the corresponding RMB to the domestic RMB account designated by the other party, and then used Diram to purchase the "TEDT" (USDT, anchoring a stable coin with the US dollar), The purchased TEDD TEDs will be sold illegally immediately through domestic gangs and re -obtain RMB, thereby forming a circulation of domestic and foreign funds. Through the difference in exchange rates, the gang can obtain more than 2% of the income in each foreign currency trading business. After investigation, Zhao and others exchanged more than RMB 43.85 million from March to April 2019, and a total of more than RMB 87 million.

On March 24, 2022, the People's Court of the West Lake District of Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province made a judgment to sentence Zhao for seven years in prison for illegal operation and fined RMB 2.3 million. It was fined RMB 450,000; Zhou Moukai was sentenced to two years and six months in prison, and a fine of RMB 2050,000 was fined.

Typical case 2:

From January 2018 to September 2021, Chen Mouguo, Guo Mouzhao and others set up websites such as the "TW711 Platform" and "Speed ​​Platform" to provide customers with foreign currency and renminbi exchange services with virtual currency TEDs. After the exchange customer places an order on the above website storage value, payment, etc., pay foreign currency to the foreign account designated by the website. After purchasing TEDs overseas with the above -mentioned foreign currency, Fan Mouzheng obtained the RMB through illegal channels, and then paid the corresponding amount of RMB to the domestic third -party payment platform account designated by the customer according to the agreed exchange rate. fee. The above websites illegally exchanged more than RMB 220 million.

On June 27, 2022, the Shanghai Baoshan District People's Court issued a judgment to sentence Guo Mouzhao for five years in prison for illegal operation and fined 200,000 yuan. And fined RMB 50,000; the crime of helping the information network crime was sentenced to one year and six months in prison, and a fine of RMB 5,000; Thousand yuan.

Determine points:

China's strict foreign exchange control is implemented in my country. Without the permission of the state foreign exchange management department, the behavior of exchanges between foreign currency and the local currency belongs to illegal trading foreign exchange. In disguise buying and selling foreign exchange, inverted foreign exchange, illegal introduction to the four behavioral models of buying and selling foreign exchange. Article 225 of the Criminal Law [illegal business crime] Violation of national regulations, there are one of the following illegal business behaviors, disturbing market order, and serious circumstances. The fines of more than five times the income; those with a particularly serious circumstances, sentenced to more than five years in prison, and double the fines of more than five times the illegal fund or more or less or less.

In addition, according to Article 4 of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress "Decision on Punishing Foreign Exchange, Escape and illegal Trading Foreign Exchange Crime" and Article 225 of the Criminal Law, the Supreme Law and Supreme Procuratorate in 2019 "Regarding illegal funds for payment settlement settlement Article 2 of the interpretation of several issues of business, illegal trading and selling foreign exchange criminal cases, stipulates that if they buy and sell foreign exchange in disguise, disturb the financial market order, and shall be convicted and punished with illegal operations. Therefore, bypassing the national foreign exchange supervision, the virtual currency is used as the transaction medium to indirectly realize the currency value conversion of foreign exchange and the RMB. If the circumstances are serious, it constitutes the crime of illegal business.

Judging from the statement of the Criminal Law, although the subjective requirements of illegal operational crimes are not clearly stipulated as "the purpose of profit", because the act of constituting crime is defined as "illegal operation", this means that the perpetrator needs to have a certain pass through a certain passing The intention of breeding activities to obtain benefits. If the motive of "for profit" is lacking, "illegal business behavior" cannot be formed. Therefore, "the purpose of profit" should be regarded as one of the subjective elements of illegal management.

In fact, this view has been generally recognized in theory and judicial practice. In the 2016 investigation report in the 2016 investigation report of the Second Court of Court of High Court of Guangdong Province: "It is not for the purpose of profit, and the behavior of exchanging foreign currencies into RMB through underground banks or exchanging RMB into foreign currencies is just a simple illegal exchange of currencies for currencies. Behavior, if the exchanges do not seek economic benefits by redeeming the behavior, cannot constitute illegal business crimes. "

Therefore, if the actor does not take profit, the purchase of foreign exchange is only for their own use. Even if it is used for investment and repayment of arrears, it does not constitute illegal business crimes, but it is only an administrative violation of the law.

In summary, in specific identification, it is still necessary to consider whether domestic and foreign operators have the purpose of profit, whether they are engaged in continuous business activities, and whether the actual subjective and objective factors such as exchanges between RMB and foreign currencies have been used to determine whether it constitutes whether it constituted crime.

(2) Use virtual currency to engage in money laundering criminal activities

On August 19, 2024, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate jointly held a press conference to release the "Two Highs" "Explanation on Several Issues on Criminal Criminal Cases for Money Laundering Criminal Cases" (hereinafter referred to as "Explanation"), since August 2024 Starting from the 20th. Among them, Article 5 It is clear that through the "virtual assets" transactions, financial asset exchange methods, transfer, conversion of criminal income and its income are included in the scope of the new money laundering behavior, it further clarifies the negative attitude of virtual currency for illegal activities for illegal activities. It also clearly stipulates that the use of virtual currencies to cover up illegal benefits or engage in illegal activities is regulated.

On January 9, the Chengdu Intermediate People's Court informed the Chengdu Court's top ten typical cases in 2024. Among them, Wang Moumou, Ma, and others raised funding fraud and money laundering. Caused more than 29,000 participants in the loss of more than 1.7 billion yuan in losses, a typical case of new types of crimes involving virtual currencies and self -laundering.

In the case, in 2020, the defendant Wang Moumou and others designed a virtual currency named GUCS and the related software "WA11ET Pro" APP. The virtual currency was traded on the two exchanges in April and June 2020. Wang Moumou conspired with the defendant Yang Moumou, Xie Moumou and others, concealing the truth and quantity of locking GUCS coin acquisition permissions and quantities. Global public welfare charities and other real economies are linked. In Chengdu, Deyang, Meishan and other places, it is promising to advocate the economic value and investment prospects of GUCS coins, develop offline in the form of pulling people, and arrange Duan Moumou, Wang and others to buy and sell themselves. Methods to manipulate GUCS currency prices to trick the masses to invest, resulting in more than 29,000 fund -raising participants a total of more than 1.7 billion yuan.

In early October 2020, Wang Moumou successively transferred the funds for fund -raising fraud to transfer about 249 million yuan to the defendant Ma. When it was known that the money was involved in the destruction of criminal crimes of financial management, Ma Mou changed the nature of the above virtual currency by investing in foreign exchange platform investment and other forms. Multiple bank accounts have a total of more than 90 million yuan. In addition, Ma Mou repeatedly helped the defendant Xie Moumou converted the "TED" to the RMB from December 2020 to January 2021, and transferred more than 6.04 million yuan to Xie Moumou's wife's account. In December 2020, the fundraising participants successively reported the case to the public security organs. The defendant Wang Moumou and others were arrested and brought to justice.

The Chengdu Intermediate People's Court heard that the defendant Wang Moumou, Yang Moumou, and Xie Moumou used the method of fraud to publicize the illegal fundraising of virtual currency to an unspecified public. It is still helpful to know that Wang Moumou and others to implement fund -raising fraud are still actively provided, and their actions have constituted a crime of fund -raising fraud. The defendant Wang Moumou concealed the source and nature of the funds obtained by his fundraising fraud. The defendant Ma Mouzhi knew that Wang Moumou and others were engaged in the crime of destroying the order of financial management and helping them to cover up and conceal the source and nature of the criminal income. Money laundering is constituted. He sentenced Wang Moumou to life imprisonment for fund -raising fraud, money laundering, and punished him, deprived of political rights for life, and confiscated all personal property. Ma was sentenced to eight years in prison for money laundering and fined 500,000 yuan. The remaining defendants were sentenced to fifteen to three years and six months in prison and corresponding amounts of funds for fund -raising fraud.

After the first instance was pronounced, the defendant Wang Moumou, Ma Mou, and others refused to appeal.

After hearing, the Sichuan Provincial High Court ruling rejected the appeal and maintained the original judgment. The verdict has been legal effect.

In addition, in judicial practice, there is a certain dilemma in the application of the division of money laundering and the crime of covering up. It is generally believed that the crime of money laundering stipulated in Article 181 of the Criminal Law and Article 312 of the Criminal Law and Article 312 of the Criminal Law, the crime of concealing the income of crime, and the income of criminal income is the special requirements of the criminal law. The upstream crimes of money laundering are drug crimes, triad organizational crimes, terrorist crimes, smuggling crimes, corruption and bribery crimes, damage to financial management order crimes, financial fraud crimes, and require actors to be subjective to the type of upstream crime. The awareness of upstream crimes can be a general understanding, that is, recognize the type of upstream crime, and does not need to recognize the specific nature and charges. The crime of covering up and concealing crime and income income is not limited to the type of upstream crime. It only requires the actor to understand the general understanding of the situation of illegal income.

**3. The latest trend of China's judicial practice on the legal

attributes of the virtual currency itself**

For a variety of crimes implemented by virtual currencies, a prerequisite that cannot be around during the establishment of crimes is the issue of the legal attributes of the virtual currency itself, that is, the property attribute of the virtual currency. Obviously, if the property attribute of the virtual currency is denied, it will not only be illegally obtained from obtaining virtual currencies, but will be applied to the crime of crimes such as the crime of theft and fraud in the crime object. The establishment of the data of computer information system data illegally. It will also deny the application of related crimes in multiple criminal scenarios such as virtual currencies illegally absorbing virtual currencies and deceiving pyramiders' virtual currencies in the form of MLM organizations.

In this regard, in the past, whether it was civilian judicial practice or criminal judicial practice, although there was a certain controversy about the property attributes of virtual currencies, in recent years, with the value of the property value of virtual currencies, it has been widely recognized and widely applicable. Showing a trend of approval of the property attributes of virtual currencies.

In this regard, in the past 2024, there are several representative cases and important articles published on the People 's Court News, which reflects the latest trends of China's judicial practice of the legal attributes of virtual currencies. The following will sort out these cases.

1. After 00, the issuance of virtual currency involving criminal cases

The "post -00" college student Yang Qichao issued a virtual currency referred to as BFF on the overseas public chain, which caused a prison disaster due to the withdrawal of liquidity. The procuratorial organs accused of issuing fake virtual currency. After others were misleading and recharging 50,000 USDT coins, Yang Qichao quickly "withdraws capital", which led others to lose 50,000 USDT coins, and his behavior constituted a crime of fraud. On February 20, 2024, the People's Court of Nanyang High -tech Industrial Development Zone in Henan Province determined that Yang Qichao had committed fraud and sentenced him to 4 years and 6 months in prison, and fined 30,000 yuan.

In this case, the defense lawyer believes that according to my country's current laws and regulations, virtual currency investment behavior is not protected by law. Both parties are illegal financial activities, and investors should not be protected by law even if they have lost losses. The determination of the court of first instance belongs to the "redemption transaction between supporting virtual currency and legal currency", which runs counter to national laws and regulations.

The court of first instance believes that "according to China's relevant policies, the virtual currency does not have monetary attributes, but in real life, based on its stability, it can be traded on many international trading platforms and brings economic benefits. " , Then recognized the 50,000 USDT currency involved in the case into the value of the RMB as a sentencing plot. The first trial judgment also stated, " As for whether the victims in the later period of the BFF currency, and the current currency in accordance with the existing value and how much value of the transaction rules of the cake platform, it does not affect Yang Qichao's fraud." The judge clearly requested that Luo could not buy or sell before the judgment was effective.

2. On May 16, 2024, the "Analysis of the People's Court News" published "Analysis of the" Theory of the "Criminal Law and Property" of the Virtual Coin "

On May 16, 2024, the "People's Court News" published a theoretical article of "Analysis of the" Theory of the Virtual Coin "Criminal Law". Ye Zhusheng, an associate professor of the School of Law, South China University of Technology, believes that "the identification of virtual currency is the criminal law Principles, the principle of unity in violation of legal order. " The reason is: "Chinese civil law and financial policies do not protect activities related to virtual currency, and do not encourage or even crack down on virtual currency -related activities, while civil law generally uses public order and good customs. Protecting virtual currency as a property, disguised the safety of virtual currency transactions, and indirectly promoted activities such as virtual currency transactions.

3. Cases of service contract disputes caused by the effective currency issuance financing service contract by the People 's Court of Songjiang District, Shanghai

On November 18th, an article released by the official public account of the Shanghai High Court was called "The issuance of high financing of virtual currencies, what was the end?" "In the article, a case dispute was introduced by a service contracts caused by the Virtual currency issuance financing service contract. For the case, the judge said, "As a virtual commodity, virtual currency has property attributes, it is not banned by law." On the basis of this, analyzing virtual currency -related business activities has been strictly limited, and it is recognized as illegal financial activities. Reasons.

4. On December 5, 2024, the "People's Court News" published "Criminal Law of illegal theft of virtual currency behavior"

In early February 2023, the defendant Chen Moumou, Jing Moumou, Huang Mou, Luo, and others were discussed. ) The way of theft. At 15:00 on March 20, 2023, the defendant Chen Moumou, Jing Moumou, Huang Mou, Luo Mou was located in the company where the victim Hu Mou, a residential area of ​​Lianshui County, was located. When he met the code scanning, Chen Moumou was responsible for the background operation. Luo was responsible for driving. He stole the USTD currency of the victim Hu Mou's USTD currency through the contract code he purchased in advance, with a total of RMB 393665.461434. After the above defendants traded some USDD currency, more than RMB 240,000 in illegal income.

The author pointed out that the "Notice on Further Preventing and Disposal the Risks of the Holiday of Virtual Currency Transactions" issued on September 15, 2021 clearly stipulates that virtual currency does not have the same legal status as legal currency. The losses triggered by it should be borne by themselves. But this notice is only to deny the status of the legal currency status of virtual currencies, but it does not deny its virtual currency property attributes.

It is generally believed that as economical property, it must be valuable, including utility, scarcity and disposableness.

In this regard, the property attributes of virtual currencies are reflected in:

① The scarcity of virtual currencies is reflected in its constant total amount, not unlimited supply.

② The disposableness is reflected in the use of asymmetric encryption technology of virtual currencies. It exists in the "wallet" (that is, address). After obtaining the address and private key, the virtual currency can be controlled.

③ The utility is reflected in the virtual currency as a specific data coding. It must be generated by "mining", and "mining" condenses social abstract labor.

④ At the same time, in real life, virtual currency can be transferred and traded to obtain computable economic income, with use value and exchange value. Therefore, virtual currencies have property attributes, and the defendant's stealing virtual currency behavior constitutes the crime of theft.

In addition, the author believes that in this case, the defendant illegally steal the victim's Tedda coin, and the contract code used is actually the defendant using illegal means to obtain the means of management authority for the server. Coin possession. Therefore, virtual currency is data, and the behavior of illegally stealing virtual currencies constitutes the crime of illegally acquiring computer information system data.

Therefore, based on the case of this case, the author believes that the four defendants' behavior violates the crime of illegal computers and theft, respectively. It is an imagination and competition. According to the principle of felony punishment, the theft should be identified.

Fourth, conclusion

Above, the author's team has sorted and introduced the latest developments of my country's new trend of virtual currency crimes in 2024, the latest developments of national supervision and national supervision, cracking down on virtual currency illegal crimes, and the latest trends of virtual currency's own legal attributes. It can be seen that the current value of the property of virtual currencies has been recognized to a great extent in my country 's judicial practice. At present, the focus of regulation of virtual currency crimes is that virtual currencies are used as criminal tools. Strike.

From this point of view, the crackdown on such crime activities in the future will be further strict. In such crimes, whether from the return of the victim's legal property or recovery or ordering compensation, the penalty is not the case. Real demand for currency judicial disposal. In fact, from January 12th to 13th, 2025, the Central Political and Law Work Conference emphasized that in response to key areas and emerging areas, the Ministry of Justice should actively study legislative suggestions. For example, new issues such as driverless, low -altitude economy, artificial intelligence, virtual currency, and data ownership should be studied. So as the improvement direction of future virtual currency legislation, the issue of judicial disposal of virtual currencies is likely to become the focus of attention to future legislation. In this regard, the team will conduct in -depth analysis in the next article.