According to ChainCatcher news, as reported by the Shenzhen Political and Legal WeChat account, an employee in Shenzhen was laid off after the probation period. The company paid 20,000 yuan in salary and 10,000 yuan in compensation, but the employee claimed that there was still 25,000 yuan in virtual currency salary unpaid, and thus took the matter to court.The court found the evidence insufficient, and since Tether is not a legal currency, it ruled that the company should pay the difference in compensation of 10,000 yuan, rejecting the claim for virtual currency salary. The appeal was dismissed by the second instance, upholding the original judgment.

ChainCatcher news, according to the Workers' Daily report, the Beijing People's Procuratorate has released the work situation of the "Procuratorial Protection for Enterprises" special action and published typical cases. In a case of embezzlement, the defendant defrauded the company of over 140 million yuan, and the procuratorial authorities tracked the virtual currency to recover losses.Between 2020 and 2021, Feng, taking advantage of his position at a certain technology company's service provider and regional operations growth department, conspired with Tang and Yang to defraud the company of service provider bonuses totaling over 140 million yuan. Subsequently, Feng directed Tang and Yang to use eight overseas virtual currency trading platforms to convert the involved funds from yuan to virtual currency, obfuscating the source and nature of the funds through overseas "mixing" platforms, and transferring them in multiple layers. Part of the involved funds flowed into accounts controlled by Feng and others in yuan form, while some were concealed by Feng and others in virtual currency form.In response to the defendants' distribution of profits using virtual currency and the obfuscation of fund flows through overseas "mixing" platforms, the procuratorial authorities conducted a line-by-line comparison and two-way review of virtual currency and legal tender, accurately identifying the flow of funds. This ultimately prompted Feng to return 92 bitcoins, recovering over 89 million yuan in illicit gains, maximizing the economic losses recovered for the victimized unit.On September 14, 2024, the Beijing First Intermediate People's Court issued a judgment, sentencing defendant Feng and seven others for embezzlement, with prison terms ranging from 14 years and 6 months to 3 years, along with corresponding fines. The judgment has taken effect.

ChainCatcher news, according to China National Radio, the Economic Investigation Team of the Public Security Bureau of Tie Dong District, Siping City, Jilin Province, China, successfully cracked a money laundering case involving a gang that used the virtual currency USDT to help financial fraud criminals transfer illicit funds. This was achieved through tracing the flow of funds and digging deep into clues during the investigation of a financial fraud crime. The criminal gang had clear divisions of labor and used various means to evade detection during their operations.Upon investigation: The suspect Liu, in collusion with Zhao, Wang, and others, from December 2023 to May 2024, knowingly assisted buyers whose funds were derived from financial fraud to profit from it. Liu first deceived others into providing their bank accounts under the pretense of needing them to process loans to prove repayment ability. The deceived bank accounts were then used to receive funds obtained from financial fraud. Liu subsequently instructed the involved parties to withdraw cash from the bank and hand it all over to Liu, who then transferred it to Zhao and Wang, who deposited the cash into their respective bank accounts. The two helped the financial fraud gang launder money by buying and selling "U coins" on digital currency trading platforms, profiting from the transactions. The gang laundered over 100,000 yuan in total.Currently, members of this money laundering criminal gang have been subjected to criminal coercive measures by the public security authorities, and the case is under further investigation.

ChainCatcher news, according to the official WeChat account of Jingde County People's Court, the Jingde Court recently concluded a case involving the organization and leadership of pyramid selling activities related to virtual currency.It is reported that Xu (handled in another case) planned to develop the "Mobius" project, which involved issuing and promoting MBUS (Mobius) virtual currency, cards, etc. Several individuals required participants to purchase and hold MBUS coins, NFT cards, and MSS coins under the guise of investing in virtual currency and derivative project trading. They actively developed downline personnel through "referral" methods and organized a hierarchical structure in a certain order, directly or indirectly using the number of developed personnel, the amount and quantity of purchased virtual currency and cards as the basis for compensation or rebates, defrauding participants of a total of over 964,300 USDT (1 USDT is approximately equal to 1 USD, equivalent to about 6.39 million RMB).After the incident, it was identified that the wallet addresses of MBUS coin holders recorded 29,280 entries, with a total referral hierarchy of 48 levels. The individuals involved, including Li, Xiang, Huang, and four others, were sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from two to three years, with probation and fines imposed.

ChainCatcher news, according to the Anhua Public Account, the EDA project that has emerged in the city has attracted significant attention. Investigations have revealed that there are major financial risk hazards, and citizens are urged to remain vigilant.It is reported that the EDA project claims to be launched by Hong Kong EDA Group Holdings Limited, promoting its business under the guise of "cross-border e-commerce and logistics companies" and other entities' traffic popularity. Members are required to pay an entry fee to purchase popular traffic to become "new recruits," with the value of popular traffic equivalent to the value in RMB.The project currently relies mainly on overseas or uncertainly secure virtual currency trading platforms for payments. The platform's funds are characterized by instability and difficulty in regulation. In the event of financial fraud or money laundering and other illegal activities, it will be difficult for the public to protect their rights.Analysis shows that the payment channels, operating model, and reward system of the EDA project have suspected pyramid scheme characteristics, posing significant financial risk hazards. Relevant departments will continue to closely monitor and take strong measures to combat such illegal activities.

ChainCatcher news, lawyer Liu Yang stated that in the future, China may implement a licensing system for certain virtual currency businesses, such as the exchange of fiat currency and virtual currency.Based on the current judicial situation, it is possible that relevant departments will be authorized to engage in the exchange of virtual currency to fiat currency, and it is highly likely to be one-way, rather than free exchange; however, trading virtual currency is difficult to liberalize, and issuing coins and mining cannot be liberalized at this stage.

ChainCatcher news, according to a disclosure from the Sinopec WeChat official account, Mr. Qiu, a truck driver from Suzhou, Jiangsu, saw an advertisement on a short video platform selling fuel cards at a low price: "A fuel card worth 1000 yuan is only 880 yuan." The other party stated that the transaction must be made using the virtual currency USDT (Tether). After transferring the USDT to the "trading platform" as instructed, it was then transferred to the other party's digital account. After the first transaction was successful, Mr. Qiu felt he had found a bargain. He then transferred a total of over 70,000 yuan in digital currency to the other party multiple times, intending to continue purchasing, but found that the digital currency in his account had disappeared, and he had been blacklisted on WeChat.Sinopec reminds consumers not to be tempted by cheap fuel cards from unofficial channels, to be cautious of fuel card discount information that seems too good to be true, and to avoid falling victim to scams.

ChainCatcher news, according to the Procuratorial Daily report, on November 18, the Jiangsu Province Jianhu County Procuratorate organized police officers to distribute promotional materials in communities and streets, explaining the main forms of crimes involving virtual currency and interpreting the legal risks of virtual currency transactions in connection with a new type of crime case mediated by virtual currency trading. In this case, three young men born after 1995 engaged in foreign exchange "business" through virtual currency trading, completing over 650 transactions and exchanging nearly 30 million yuan in just a few months. The Jianhu County Procuratorate filed a public prosecution, and recently, the court sentenced Lin and two others to fixed-term imprisonment of five years to one year and six months for illegal business operations, along with fines.Lin, in collaboration with a Nigerian national, used the local legal currency Naira to purchase Tether on the Binance exchange, then transferred the Tether to Lin's Binance account. Lin sold the Tether to domestic currency traders in exchange for RMB, which was then transferred to a bank account in China provided by the Nigerian national. Lin determined the purchase price by discounting 5% from the day's listing price of Tether and then sold it to domestic currency traders at the listing price, earning the price difference.The prosecutor reviewed and concluded that Lin and the other two used virtual currency as a medium to provide cross-border exchange and payment services to earn exchange rate differences, which circumvented national foreign exchange regulations by exploiting the special properties of virtual currency, affecting the effectiveness of foreign exchange management and the stability of legal exchange rates, thereby disrupting the normal order of the financial market. They should be held criminally responsible for illegal business operations according to the law.

ChainCatcher news, the Shanghai No. 2 Intermediate People's Court released a white paper on "Balancing Punishment and Governance" in criminal trials, which disclosed that since 2019, over 600 criminal cases related to quasi-financial trading platforms have been concluded. In terms of investment types, the investment schemes in quasi-financial trading platform crimes are diverse and constantly evolving, shifting from initial investments in physical items like stamps and paintings to financial investments such as futures, options, stocks, and foreign exchange trading, and now extending into emerging fields like NFTs (digital collectibles) and digital currencies.From the statistical data, the top three investment schemes by case volume are futures, stocks, and virtual currencies, accounting for approximately 50%, 20%, and 11%, respectively. Criminals often use WeChat public accounts, mini-programs, and live broadcasts to extensively promote so-called "virtual currencies," leading to an expanding range of related illegal information and a continuous increase in the number of victims.

ChainCatcher news, the Civil Court Daily published an article titled "Criminal Qualification of Illegal Theft of Virtual Currency," which points out that the act of stealing virtual currency constitutes theft. As an economic property, it must have value, including utility, scarcity, and disposability. Scarcity is reflected in the constant total supply of virtual currency, which is not infinitely available. Disposability is demonstrated by the use of asymmetric encryption technology for virtual currency, which exists in wallets (i.e., addresses), and once the address and private key are obtained, one can control the virtual currency. Utility is reflected in the fact that virtual currency, as a specific data encoding, must be generated through "mining," which condenses social abstract labor.The article also points out that the act of stealing virtual currency constitutes the crime of illegally obtaining data from computer systems, as virtual currency has data characteristics. The illegal theft of virtual currency constitutes the crime of illegally obtaining data from computer systems. Regarding the determination of the amount of stolen virtual currency, it is more reasonable to set the amount of virtual currency involved in the case at the time the defendant committed the crime rather than when the victim purchased the virtual currency.

ChainCatcher news, recently the Tianjin police disclosed a new type of scam involving "virtual currency investment and offline trading." The police found that the so-called "U coin" investment was just a facade, while the so-called "U merchants" were groups that helped the scammers transfer funds.Investigations revealed that since July this year, the criminal gang, under the guise of "U merchants," has committed more than 10 cases in Tianjin and surrounding provinces and cities, involving an amount of over 500,000 yuan. Currently, 4 members of the gang have been legally approved for arrest by the People's Procuratorate of Wuqing District, Tianjin.

ChainCatcher news, the revised Anti-Money Laundering Law of the People's Republic of China will come into effect on January 1, 2025. The Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Chief Prosecutor of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, Yin Yong, emphasized the need to strengthen the fight against money laundering crimes in a coordinated manner, accurately grasp the provisions of the revised Anti-Money Laundering Law regarding the improvement of the scope of upstream money laundering crimes, comprehensively implement the Anti-Money Laundering Law and the Criminal Law's provisions on "money laundering," accurately apply the "Two Highs" interpretation on several issues concerning the application of laws in handling criminal cases of money laundering, deepen the three-year action plan for combating and governing money laundering violations, punish money laundering and related crimes according to law, enhance the ability to combat money laundering crimes using new technologies, new products, and new businesses such as virtual currencies, and form a joint force against such crimes.

According to ChainCatcher news and monitoring by Lookonchain, in the past 3 days, four whales have purchased a total of 5.87 million VIRTUAL, worth 7.46 million dollars.0xF973...0798 spent 1.47 million dollars to purchase 1.91 million VIRTUAL at a price of 0.77 dollars.0x015C...A631 spent 1.71 million dollars to purchase 1.55 million VIRTUAL at a price of 1.1 dollars.0x696B...6Ca5 spent 1.08 million dollars to purchase 1.21 million VIRTUAL at a price of 0.89 dollars.0xe7CE...241B spent 1.09 million dollars to purchase 1.20 million VIRTUAL at a price of 0.91 dollars.

According to ChainCatcher news, the Shenzhen News Network reported that the People's Court of Qianhai Cooperation Zone in Shenzhen recently made a ruling on a labor dispute case involving virtual currency salary payments. The case originated in June 2021, when the plaintiff, Zhou, joined a company as a senior engineer, claiming that he had agreed with the company on a monthly salary of 45,000 yuan, of which 20,000 yuan would be paid via bank transfer and the remaining 25,000 yuan in the form of USDT. Two months later, the company terminated the labor contract on the grounds of "skills not matching," but did not pay the agreed portion of the salary in virtual currency.The court determined that, according to the "Notice on Further Preventing and Dealing with Risks of Virtual Currency Trading Speculation" issued by the central bank and ten other departments in September 2021, virtual currencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and USDT do not have legal tender status. At the same time, Article 50 of the Labor Law and Article 5 of the Interim Provisions on Wage Payment clearly state that wages must be paid in legal currency on a monthly basis and cannot be replaced by other forms.Ultimately, the court only supported the plaintiff's claim regarding the unlawful termination of the labor contract, ordering the company to pay 10,000 yuan in compensation. The case was upheld by the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court in the second instance.

ChainCatcher news, according to Workers' Daily reports, the People's Court of Changping District, Beijing recently released a case where an employee used their position to obtain virtual currency for profit, constituting the crime of illegally obtaining data from a computer information system. Zhang, a blockchain engineer at a certain internet company, learned that there was a large amount of Ethereum in the account while participating in project development, and planned to attack the company's account to obtain it.Taking advantage of his work, he asked colleagues for program codes and private keys beyond his authority and shared them in a "technical exchange group," inviting group members to crack and attack the company's account, successfully obtaining 106.15 Ethereum and illegally profiting 38,329.76 yuan.The court found that Zhang violated regulations by illegally obtaining Ethereum information from the company's computer system and trading for profit, constituting the crime of illegally obtaining data from a computer information system. Although there were management loopholes in the company, this was not a valid excuse for Zhang's crime. Ultimately, Zhang was sentenced to 3 years and 6 months in prison, fined 60,000 yuan, and ordered to return the illegal gains of 38,329.76 yuan. The second-instance ruling rejected the appeal and upheld the original judgment.