Research Progress on the Judicial Disposal of Virtual Money: The Supreme Court Research Team Explores New Directions

In August last year, the Supreme People's Court publicly released 30 tender topics, including the judicial disposal of virtual money involved in cases. Recently, it was learned that Renmin University of China and Southwest University of Political Science and Law have become the winning units for this topic.

Recently, a closed-door seminar on "Research on the Disposal Issues of Involved Virtual Money" was held, with attendees including Professor Yang Dong from the Law School of Renmin University of China, Judge Chen Xinwang from the Third Criminal Division of the Supreme People's Court, Engineer Ma Zhe from the Equipment Division of the First Research Institute of the Ministry of Public Security, as well as representatives from a mobile company, a property exchange, and a financial services company.

At the seminar, Professor Yang Dong, the head of the research team from Renmin University of China, stated that the team has conducted research in the United States. A judge from a criminal court in Beijing pointed out that, under the premise of determining that virtual money has property attributes, challenges still exist in aspects such as case classification, calculation of criminal amounts, and identification of criminal forms. A property trading platform introduced the workflow and latest progress of joint disposal.

Engineer Ma Zhe from the Ministry of Public Security suggested that the courts and public security agencies should strengthen collaboration in the enforcement phase and could adopt a "dual-entrustment mechanism," where independent entities from both domestic and abroad undertake the disposal tasks. For the custody of the virtual money involved in the case, he proposed enhancing security through methods such as performance guarantees, cold wallets, and insurance arrangements.

Currently, the research on the disposal of the virtual money involved in the case by the research group of Renmin University of China is still in the preliminary stage, and no conclusive opinions have been formed. In practice, a certain property exchange has signed a "Cooperation Framework Agreement for the Disposal of Involved Virtual Money" with a certain municipal public security bureau, but the actual disposal business is still executed by a third-party disposal company.

Currently, the disposal of the involved Virtual Money is mainly carried out through joint efforts both domestically and internationally. However, since the beginning of this year, the progress of disposal work has noticeably slowed down across the country, primarily due to doubts regarding whether the involved Virtual Money can be disposed of in compliance with regulations.

The focus of the seminar includes: the difficulties in executing cases involving coins, the transparency of handling service fees, and the improvement of interdepartmental cooperation mechanisms. In the future, cooperation may involve multiple departments such as public security, courts, government finance, the central bank, and foreign exchange administration.

Before establishing a national strategic reserve of virtual money in China, the virtual money seized by judicial authorities in the mainland will ultimately need to be dealt with for liquidation. Until relevant policies are amended or abolished, the exchange between virtual money and fiat currency still needs to be conducted overseas. The compliance of judicial disposal requires both theoretical support and practical exploration, especially in the emerging field of judicial disposal of involved virtual money.