ChainCatcher news, the WeChat official account of the People's Court of Laiwu District, Jinan City announced typical cases of the application of the Civil Code in Shandong courts 167, the legal attributes of digital collectibles and the validity of their trading behavior (Yang vs. a cultural creative company in a sales contract dispute). The key points of the ruling indicate that digital collectibles are a type of online virtual property. Currently, there are no legal prohibitions against the issuance and trading of digital collectibles in our country. As long as the parties involved have the corresponding civil capacity and their intentions are genuine, the trading behavior of digital collectibles between civil subjects should be recognized as legal and valid.Digital collectibles have both collection and investment attributes, which carry a high market risk. Buyers aiming to profit from the price differences in the secondary market for digital collectibles should not be recognized as consumers under the "Consumer Rights Protection Law" and should bear the corresponding risks of market price fluctuations.

ChainCatcher news, according to the report from the Linyi Hedong public account, in early 2023, the Linyi Public Security Bureau Yihe New District Branch discovered an APP suspected of gambling during their work, with a huge flow of funds.Upon investigation, this APP was developed by Zhao at the behest of the criminal suspect Shi. Shi used his and his family's identities to open multiple fund pool accounts, allowing members to exchange virtual currency for chips within the APP, engaging in online gambling by predicting the rise and fall of virtual currency exchange rates over different time periods. At the same time, Shi recruited people like Cao and Wu with high commissions as bait, promoting the APP everywhere, actively developing agents at all levels, and attracting a large number of members to participate in gambling.Since 2023, the public security organs of Yihe New District have successively arrested 13 suspects involved in the case, including Shi, and seized over 10 million yuan in related funds. In May 2024, Shi and others were sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment by the people's court in accordance with the law.

ChainCatcher news, according to Jinshi reports, recently the Weifang Municipal Bureau of Industry and Information Technology issued "Several Policies for Accelerating the Development of the Metaverse Industry," proposing to establish a metaverse industry fund group with a total scale of no less than 10 billion yuan, focusing on the metaverse industry chain and targeting enterprises at different lifecycle stages, with the first phase scale no less than 2 billion yuan. The funds will be primarily used to invest in and attract "strong chain, supplementary chain, and extended chain" enterprises and projects.State-owned enterprises are encouraged to jointly establish a special fund for the metaverse industry, exploring a direct investment model that combines "equity + debt." They can exit within 5 years at a rate not higher than the bank loan interest rate for the same period, and exit after 5 years in a market-oriented manner. The municipal guiding fund can transfer the value-added income to the contributing state-owned enterprises.

ChainCatcher news, the Public Security Bureau of Linyi County, Shandong Province successfully dismantled a criminal gang that used a "money-running team" to launder money for overseas scammers through the purchase of virtual currency, arresting 6 suspects involved in illegal activities, with a case value of over 2 million yuan.The Linyi County Public Security Bureau received a tip-off: a bank card under the name of Ma was involved in online fraud activities. After meticulous investigation, the police discovered that Ma used his own bank card to receive criminal funds and repeatedly withdrew cash at bank counters and ATMs to transfer the criminal funds. At the same time, Ma also introduced "card farmers" Wang and Liu to provide cards and withdraw cash. The police arrested Ma and the other two, and during interrogation, a multi-person, clearly divided "money-running team" gang surfaced.Through close cooperation among multiple police departments, the police successfully captured Ma's "upper-level" Zhao. Zhao truthfully confessed that he, along with Zhang and Yang, conspired to launder money for overseas scammers using the "card return to U" method. Ultimately, the police arrested Zhang, a key member of the gang, in Tianjin.Thus, a "money-running team" gang that had a complex and hidden funding channel, utilizing "card farmers" and other low-income groups to withdraw cash at bank counters and ATMs, transferring fraud-related funds through "small amounts and multiple transactions" and "card return to U" methods was completely dismantled. Currently, the 6 individuals involved have been subjected to criminal coercive measures according to the law, and the case is under further investigation. (Dazhong Daily)

ChainCatcher news, according to Yangtze Evening News, the police in Qingdao, Shandong Province, have jointly cracked a major underground bank case involving an amount as high as 15.8 billion yuan, which spans 17 provinces and municipalities across the country, and have arrested brokers involved in the illegal buying and selling of virtual currencies.In November 2022, the Qingdao police discovered that the accounts of a person named Jin and others were extremely abnormal, with over a thousand accounts showing an average daily flow of more than 3 million yuan and a total transaction amount exceeding 2 billion yuan. Additionally, large amounts of funds exhibited abnormal characteristics such as high-frequency operations and rapid in-and-out transactions around the clock.Li is an ordinary employee of a textile company in a county-level city, but the fund flow of the third-party bank cards associated with her name and controlled by her reached over 5 billion yuan, which is clearly inconsistent with her identity. Therefore, we conducted an investigation focusing on her trading counterpart and found that Li's other identity was actually a broker specializing in the illegal buying and selling of virtual currencies. Li helped Jin convert a large amount of funds into Tether and other virtual currencies through an overseas virtual currency trading platform. After obtaining conclusive evidence, the case handlers carried out a net-seizing operation. The Qingdao police seized virtual currencies such as Tether and Litecoin worth approximately 2 million yuan on-site. The case has now been transferred to the procuratorate for review and prosecution.

ChainCatcher news, according to the Liaocheng Public Security WeChat account, the Public Security Bureau of Shenxian County, Liaocheng City, Shandong Province, has successfully cracked the city's first case of pyramid schemes involving virtual currency, "12·04". Six leaders and key members of the pyramid scheme were arrested, and over 10 million yuan in illegal gains was recovered.In December 2022, police from the Shenxian Public Security Bureau discovered virtual currency pyramid scheme activities on the Binance Smart Chain during an online patrol. The project used the "token pocket" wallet and smart contracts to issue decentralized cryptocurrencies DCS and CAR, enticing participants with high returns to inflate the prices of DCS and CAR, and recruit new members, suspected of being involved in pyramid scheme activities. The special task force had previously set up a forward command center in Qingdao and received assistance from public security agencies in Tai'an, Weifang, Xi'an, Fuzhou, and other locations.

ChainCatcher news, the Shandong Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology has taken the lead in drafting the "Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Innovative Development of the Metaverse Industry in Shandong Province" and is publicly soliciting opinions from society.The guiding opinions indicate that Shandong Province plans to achieve an average annual growth of about 15% in the scale of the metaverse-related industries by 2025, reaching around 150 billion yuan; key enterprises are expected to apply for more than 3,000 international and domestic patents cumulatively.In addition, Shandong Province will also support the construction of more than 30 public application experience centers for the metaverse, create 100 metaverse characteristic application scenarios, and develop a batch of products and services in consumer electronics, digital content, new display technologies, and more.

ChainCatcher news, according to Phoenix Network, recently, the police in Jining, Shandong Province, cracked a case involving cross-border gambling and the dissemination of obscene materials, which was listed as a target case by the Ministry of Public Security during the "Clean Internet 2023" special operation. They dismantled 6 involved gangs, arrested 64 criminal suspects, and seized a batch of mobile phones and computers used in the crimes. Investigations revealed that the involved online platform accepted illegal personnel deposits totaling 1.581 billion yuan, with the platform profiting 516 million yuan. It is reported that this criminal gang typically used foreign social networking software for communication and conducted financial settlements through virtual currencies and other means.

ChainCatcher news, the Ministry of Public Security recently organized a regional campaign against telecom network fraud in the "E, Hunan, Shandong, and Henan" areas, directing the public security agencies of Shandong, Henan, Hubei, and Hunan provinces to simultaneously carry out concentrated strikes, successfully capturing a large number of suspects involved in fraud, dismantling over 3,300 criminal dens, and seizing 104,000 (units) tools used for crimes such as mobile phones, computers, and "two cards," as well as confiscating cash and virtual currencies (USDT) with a total value of over 58 million yuan. (source link)