Lawyers, representatives of law enforcement and the judiciary in the PRC held a seminar devoted to cryptocurrencies. The Shanghai prosecutor’s office said so.
The forum’s theme was the attributes inherent to digital currencies and market oversight. At the event, a bill was presented defining their types, legal status, valuation, and corresponding regulation.
The document was authored by Hu Chunjiang, a representative of the prosecutor’s office. He noted that there have already been cases in judicial practice of criminal and financial crimes linked to cryptocurrencies. In his view, courts identify these assets in different ways: some classify them as informational data, others as property.
Yu Haixun, director of the Criminal Division of the Research Office of the Supreme People’s Court of the PRC, acknowledged that cryptocurrencies have attributes of property, but the body has yet to determine whether they fit this category.
According to a press release, Chinese law enforcement agencies divide crimes in the digital-currency sphere into direct and indirect. In the first case, cryptocurrency itself is the object of the offense. In the second, they relate to investments, settlements and money laundering, as well as ICO.
Lingling emphasised that China insists on a ‘zero-tolerance’ policy toward instruments threatening national financial security. In her view, those include privately issued digital currencies, and thus authorities should tighten oversight in this area.
As noted, the People’s Bank of China has described Bitcoin and stablecoins as speculative instruments. According to journalist Colin Wu, the PRC government first articulated the reasons for pressure on the cryptocurrency mining industry.
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