Research on the Judicial Disposal of Virtual Money has made new progress, the Supreme Court research team discusses key issues

Recently, a closed-door seminar on "Research on the Disposal of Involved Virtual Money" was held in Beijing. The attendees included experts from institutions such as the Law School of Renmin University of China, the Third Criminal Division of the Supreme People's Court, and the First Research Institute of the Ministry of Public Security, as well as representatives from some enterprises. This study is one of the 30 tender topics publicly released by the Supreme People's Court last August, and it is undertaken by institutions including Renmin University of China.

At the seminar, the head of the research team from Renmin University of China stated that they had conducted relevant research in the United States. A judge from the Criminal Division of the Beijing Third Intermediate People's Court pointed out that, based on the confirmation that Virtual Money has property attributes, there are still challenges in aspects such as case classification, calculation of the amount of crime, and identification of criminal forms, and practical conventions have yet to be established.

A property trading center introduced the workflow and latest progress of joint disposal. An engineer from the Ministry of Public Security suggested adopting a "dual entrustment mechanism," allowing independent entities both domestically and abroad to undertake disposal tasks, and proposed enhancing the security of custody for the involved Virtual Money through measures such as performance guarantees, cold wallets, and insurance.

Based on the content of the seminar, the research of the current research group is still in the initial stage and has not yet reached conclusive viewpoints. In practice, although a certain property exchange has signed a cooperation agreement with the Beijing Public Security Bureau, the actual disposal operations are still carried out by a third-party company. Currently, joint disposal both domestically and internationally remains the primary model, but the pace of disposal across the country has slowed down, mainly due to lingering doubts in various regions about the compliant disposal of Virtual Money.

In the future, the disposal of the involved virtual money may undergo the following changes:

1. The entrusted party may turn from the public security organs to the court enforcement bureau.

2. The disposal service fees will be more transparent.

3. Inter-departmental cooperation mechanisms will become more common, involving multiple departments such as public security, courts, finance, the central bank, and the foreign exchange administration.

4. Strengthening cross-border judicial cooperation may be necessary during overseas disposal.

Under the existing policy framework, the virtual money seized in the mainland still needs to be disposed of and monetized abroad. The compliance of judicial disposal of virtual money requires both theoretical support and the accumulation and exploration of practical experience.