On August 23 last year, the Supreme People's Court publicly released 30 bidding topics to the whole society, including the judicial disposal of virtual currencies involved in the case. At that time, Lawyer Liu also wrote an article to analyze it (see: " New Trends in the Disposal of Virtual Currency Involved in the Case Has Become a Key Research Topic of the Supreme Court "). Recently, according to public information, Renmin University of China is one of the winning bidders (Southwest University of Political Science and Law is also researching this topic).
Recently, Professor Yang Dong from the Law School of Renmin University of China, Judge Chen Xinwang from the Third Criminal Tribunal of the Supreme People's Court, Ma Zhe, an engineer from the Police Equipment Division of the First Research Institute of the Ministry of Public Security, and other representatives from other agencies, as well as representatives from China Mobile Migu Company, Beijing Equity Exchange, Hong Kong Financial Transactions and Services Co., Ltd., and Cloud Account Technology (Tianjin) Co., Ltd. attended a closed-door seminar on "Research on the Disposal of Virtual Currency Involved in Cases ."
1. What was discussed at the seminar?
We can learn from the article " The closed-door seminar on the major judicial research topic "Research on the disposal of virtual currencies involved in cases" of the Supreme People's Court in 2024 was successfully held " that the research team of Renmin University of China is still conducting research on the judicial disposal of virtual currencies involved in cases. Professor Yang Dong, the head of the research team, said that the research team had visited the United States for research;
A judge of the Criminal Court of Beijing No. 3 Intermediate People's Court said that under the premise of determining that virtual currency has property attributes , there are challenges in the characterization of (currency-related) cases, calculation of crime amounts, and identification of crime forms (in plain words, there is currently no practical practice);
The Beijing Equity Exchange introduced the workflow and latest progress of the joint disposal (see Lawyer Liu’s previous article for details: “ What is the “new channel” for the disposal of virtual currencies involved in cases by the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau? Can it be opened for disposal now? ”).
Ma Zhe, an engineer at the Institute of Public Security, believes that it is important for the courts and public security organs to cooperate in the execution process. He suggests a "double entrustment mechanism" in which independent entities at home and abroad undertake the disposal task. For the custody of the virtual currency involved in the case, security can be improved through performance bonds, cold wallets and insurance packages.
Lawyer Liu will not elaborate on the opinions of other experts.
2. Are there any new developments in current handling practices?
Based on the content of the seminar, Lawyer Liu judged that the research team of Renmin University of China on the disposal of the virtual currency involved is still in the early stages and no conclusive opinion has been reached yet.
Both the research team's visit to the United States and the judges' views basically remain at the academic theoretical stage.
Beijing Equity Exchange (hereinafter referred to as “BCE”) and the First Institute of the Ministry of Public Security have made new progress in practice. For example, a few days ago, BCE and Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau signed the “Cooperation Framework Agreement on the Disposal of Virtual Currency Involved in the Case”. However, according to what Lawyer Liu has learned, the actual disposal business is not directly handled by BCE, but entrusted to a service company (i.e. a third-party disposal company) for disposal.
The current disposal practice is still mainly based on joint disposal at home and abroad, and there is no new change. However, from the personal experience of Lawyer Liu, the promotion of disposal in various parts of the country has slowed down significantly since this year. The main reason is that various places still have doubts about whether the virtual currency involved can be disposed of in compliance with regulations.
But objectively speaking, the "official announcement" of the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau may indeed promote future disposal work across the country, because the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau should be the first to publicly and in detail disclose the details of its cooperation in the judicial disposal of virtual currency involved in the case.
III. The impact of the Supreme Court’s research on future disposal models
Looking through the promotional articles for the seminar, Lawyer Liu noticed that the experts from the research team of Renmin University of China were concerned about the following points:
First, the judge of the Civil Court of Beijing No. 3 Intermediate People's Court mentioned that local courts have difficulties in enforcing currency-related cases. So in the future, is it possible that the judicial organs will be entrusted by the execution bureau of the court instead of the current public security organs?
Second, disposal service fees should be made more transparent. More than one participant said that the rationality of disposal prices and transparency of fees should be the focus of research in the future.
Third, cross-departmental cooperation mechanisms will become more common. On the entrustment side, in the future, at least the public security, courts, government finance departments, and even the central bank (local branches), the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (local branches) and other departments will need to cooperate; on the disposal side, under the domestic and overseas joint disposal model, the final disposal and realization needs to be carried out overseas. If legal disputes arise during overseas disposal, cross-border judicial cooperation between overseas and domestic judicial authorities is also required.
Before China establishes a national strategic reserve of virtual currency, virtual currencies seized by mainland judicial authorities will eventually face disposal and liquidation; and before the "9.24 Notice" is amended or repealed, no one in mainland China can exchange virtual currency for legal currency, and it still needs to be disposed of overseas.
Compliance in judicial disposal requires both compliance argumentation and design on the theoretical side as well as innovation and experimentation on the practical side, especially for the judicial disposal of virtual currencies involved in the case.
