ChainCatcher news, according to The Paper, the Jingde Court in Zhejiang recently concluded a contract dispute case regarding the sale of virtual currency mining machines. In April 2021, the plaintiff, Mr. Hang, purchased a "mining machine" platform and 64 hard drives from the defendant, Mr. Chen, for a total value of 429,000 yuan. After paying the full amount, Mr. Chen failed to deliver the equipment as agreed and only refunded 180,000 yuan.The court cited the National Development and Reform Commission's "Notice on Rectifying Virtual Currency 'Mining' Activities" issued in September 2021, as well as the central bank and other departments' "Notice on Further Preventing and Handling Risks of Virtual Currency Trading Speculation," determining that activities related to virtual currency are illegal financial activities. The court ruled that the contract for the sale of the mining machines was invalid due to violation of public order and good customs, and ordered the defendant to return the remaining 249,000 yuan.The second-instance court upheld the original ruling, stating that the relevant contract not only violated public order and good customs but also did not conform to the basic principles of resource conservation and environmental protection.

ChainCatcher news, on October 25, the Ministry of Public Security held a special press conference in Beijing to report on the effectiveness of the measures taken by the national public security organs to combat and rectify ethnic asset unfreezing fraud crimes.Zhou Qiancheng, head of the Criminal Investigation Division of the Ningbo Public Security Bureau in Zhejiang Province, introduced that at the beginning of this year, Ningbo public security organs discovered that local residents were participating in the "China International Plum Blossom Association" ethnic asset unfreezing fraud project. Upon investigation, it was found that the suspects established an illegal organization called "China International Plum Blossom Association" as bait with high pension returns, recruiting participants from all over the country, and collecting fees under the names of "membership fees," "venue fees," "certificate fees," and "personal income tax," using virtual currency to launder money and illegally profit. The involved funds have been confirmed to exceed 58 million yuan.Currently, the case is still under further investigation.

ChainCatcher news, recently, the Oak Grove Ventures - Zhejiang University School of Software Blockchain Joint Laboratory team won the first prize at the CCF2024 China Digital Services Conference Service Computing Innovation Competition.This competition is co-hosted by the Teaching Guidance Committee for Software Engineering of the Ministry of Education of China and the Service Computing Special Committee of the China Computer Federation, making it one of the most influential events in the field of computer science in China, and it enjoys a high reputation internationally.The goal of the award-winning project is to utilize new generation information technologies (such as the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, big data, etc.) to build a wide-ranging, responsive, and highly intelligent water area supervision system. Through technological innovation, this system can significantly enhance the efficiency and accuracy of water area supervision, achieve rapid identification and response to malicious behaviors, provide scientific basis for ecological protection of water areas, and ultimately realize intelligent water area governance. This project not only showcases the team's outstanding capabilities in scientific research and innovation but also highlights their excellent spirit of collaboration.

ChainCatcher news, according to the Zhejiang Procuratorate public account, recently a criminal gang in Shaoxing City, Zhejiang Province illegally cashed out over 200,000 yuan within four days using digital RMB accounts. Several individuals lured merchants with digital RMB accounts through shopping and casual conversations. After the merchants agreed to cash out, they first converted a certain amount of their own money into virtual currency as a deposit to transfer to the upper-level operator, and then sent the digital RMB payment code to the upper-level operator. Once the fraudulent funds entered the merchant's digital RMB account, the merchant deducted a handling fee ranging from 1% to 1.5% and cashed out the corresponding amount. The Yuecheng District Procuratorate filed a public prosecution, and the court sentenced Yuan, Zhang, and Kou to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from one year and four months to seven months for the crime of concealing and disguising criminal proceeds, along with fines.Prosecutors remind the public to enhance their understanding of digital RMB, pay attention to protecting personal information, and report any suspicious situations promptly to safeguard their property security.

ChainCatcher news reports that, according to The Paper, the family of the victim revealed that Dai Lumin, a former official of the Natural Resources and Planning Bureau of Taizhou City, Zhejiang Province, was executed on the morning of February 2. In September 2020, Dai Lumin lured his newlywed wife to commit suicide by poison, attempting to defraud insurance compensation. At the time of the incident, they had been married for less than two months. Dai Lumin had incurred huge debts before the crime and was in a second marriage with the victim, who unfortunately died from pufferfish toxin. On December 1, 2021, the case was heard in the Taizhou Intermediate People's Court of Zhejiang Province.The prosecution accused Dai Lumin of incurring debts of over 2.6 million yuan due to failed stock trading and virtual currency speculation, leading him to develop the malicious intent to kill for insurance money to alleviate his financial pressure. On April 26, 2020, Dai Lumin had Wang purchase a term life insurance policy with a coverage amount of 2 million yuan online. As the 90-day waiting period for the insurance was about to expire, Dai Lumin married Wang on July 20, 2020, and on July 24, he had Wang change the beneficiary of the insurance from her father to himself. Wang's family mentioned in the civil suit attached to the criminal case that Wang was just one of Dai Lumin's many female friends, and that the entire process of purchasing insurance, getting married, and changing the beneficiary was induced by Dai Lumin.The victim's family's attorney believes that Dai Lumin directly committed intentional murder to defraud a large amount of insurance money, with extremely heinous circumstances and methods, which should constitute direct intentional homicide and insurance fraud, warranting the death penalty. Due to his criminal actions, Wang's family suffered significant economic and mental losses and should be compensated. In 2022, Dai Lumin was sentenced to death for intentional homicide in the first instance, and the second instance upheld the original verdict.

ChainCatcher news, the official WeChat public account of Zhejiang Public Security announced that recently, there has been a surge in fraudulent online investment and financial management cases, with many citizens in the province being defrauded of over one million yuan. Zhejiang Public Security urgently reminds the public: please be vigilant, carefully identify, keep a tight grip on your "money bag," and be wary of falling into traps set by scammers. The article lists 5 typical cases that occurred recently, among which 2 involve virtual currency:In early January 2024, a person named "Wang Yiyi" contacted Mr. B, a citizen of Ningbo, through enterprise WeChat. After chatting, Mr. B downloaded a social chat APP recommended by the other party called "MosTalk (泡泡)," and they communicated through MosTalk (泡泡). Later, Mr. B downloaded the "Litecoin" APP based on a link sent by the other party. The scammers induced him to make multiple large transfers to invest in virtual currency on this fake platform, and he only realized he had been scammed when he found he could not withdraw his funds.Mr. E, a citizen of Yiwu, usually has a habit of stock trading. In November 2023, Mr. E watched stock trading live videos on WeChat video accounts, added the other party's WeChat ID, and was added to a WeChat group. He downloaded a chat software using a QR code sent in the group, and under the guidance of the scammers, he downloaded the fake investment platform BaseHk. In January 2024, Mr. E made multiple large transfers on the platform to purchase virtual currency, and later discovered he had been defrauded.

ChainCatcher news, Shaoxing City will issue a total of 40 million yuan in government consumption vouchers, distributed in the form of digital yuan red envelopes. These digital yuan consumption vouchers will be distributed by the Shaoxing Municipal Finance Bureau through a lottery. Participants must have a digital yuan wallet and be residents of Shaoxing City. The Asian Games will be held in Hangzhou on September 22, and this event is aimed at promoting the adoption of China's central bank digital currency (CBDC) before the Asian Games.

According to ChainCatcher news and Ethereum client developer Nethermind, Ethereum's first public withdrawal testnet Zhejiang has officially launched, and the Shanghai+Capella upgrade is expected to take place next week (epoch 1350). (Source link)

ChainCatcher message, Ethereum Foundation DevOps engineer Parithosh stated on his social platform that the first public withdrawal testnet Zhejiang, prepared for the Shanghai/Capella upgrade, will launch on February 1 at 23:00. (source link)

ChainCatcher news, recently the Zhejiang Provincial Development and Reform Commission and 5 other departments jointly issued the "Zhejiang Province Metaverse Industry Development Action Plan (2023-2025)." The plan mentions that by 2025, the metaverse industry chain system in Zhejiang Province will be basically formed, with comprehensive industrial competitiveness reaching a national leading level, driving the scale of related industries to exceed 200 billion yuan.It is reported that this is the third provincial-level metaverse special policy following Shanghai and Henan. In addition to the "Zhejiang Province Metaverse Industry Development Action Plan (2023-2025)," several urban areas in Zhejiang have also laid out plans for the "metaverse" industry and provided generous funding to support the introduction and cultivation of related enterprises. (Source link)