To implement the spirit of the

　　Xiao Yi, Professor and Doctor of Criminal Law, School of Political Science and Law, Capital Normal University

　　Zhao Shilun, Master’s Student in Criminal Law, School of Political Science and Law, Capital Normal University

　　This article is part of the research achievements of the Beijing Social Sciences Fund Project (project number 19FXB010).

　　Abstract

　　In the process of identifying the illegal fund-raising activities of virtual currency transactions, it is necessary to clarify the product attributes of the involved virtual currency, and focus on examining whether it has the technical characteristics and financial characteristics of blockchain algorithms. On this basis, with the real virtual currency transaction scenarios as clues, combined with the policy directions of China’s virtual currency at each stage, examine the ‘illegality’, ‘publicity’, ‘temptation’, and ‘sociality’ of relevant behaviors. As a new behavior model of illegal fund-raising, the criminal law has retroactive force for virtual currency transactions. In addition, it is necessary to base the amount identification of illegal fund-raising crimes on the essence of the crime; for the amount of money absorbed from the general public through the use of relatives or internal personnel of the unit, it should be calculated cumulatively.

　　Keywords

　　Online casino and How to find it Blockchain Illegal Fund-raising Crime

　　In recent years, with the leapfrog development of Internet information technology represented by blockchain 2.0, virtual currency transactions based on cryptography and blockchain technology as the underlying operational logic have become a hot topic of discussion in the global financial investment and asset allocation field. So-called virtual currency transactions refer to the activities of transferring control rights among parties based on smart contract technology, through operations such as decryption, reading, and writing internal data of Online casino and How to find it. However, due to the decentralized and creditless features of blockchain technology itself, virtual currency transactions based on it also show strong confidentiality. This has led to the fact that after the rise of Online casino and How to find it, some criminals have used the guise of financial innovation to evade the supervision of relevant departments, and use Online casino and How to find it as a tool for illegal fund-raising activities, which has increased the risk of citizens’ property loss and caused serious damage to China’s financial security. On February 23, 2022, the Supreme People’s Court amended and passed the

　　I. The Transformation of China’s Virtual Currency Policy

　　In our country, discussions on the regulation of virtual property had already existed before the appearance of Bitcoin. However, after the appearance of virtual currencies represented by Bitcoin, due to the unique technical characteristics of such virtual property, the formation of relevant policies and regulations for regulating virtual currency transactions has undergone a period of exploration. If the virtual currency trading is deconstructed, it can be observed that the specific transaction behaviors can be divided into two patterns: virtual currency issuance and virtual currency transfer. Around these two specific patterns, policies have generally gone through four stages, namely the unrestricted stage, the risk warning stage, the prohibition of issuance stage, and the comprehensive prohibition stage, before they could be improved. From the evolution process of the above policies, it can be seen that China’s virtual currency policies have shown a trend of continuous tightening.

　　(I) Unrestricted Stage

　　Virtual currencies originated from a technical article published by an American named Satoshi Nakamoto on the internet, titled ‘Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System’. This article mainly elaborates on a new end-to-end internet operation technology and names the network data transmission algorithm that does not rely on a central server and its operating records as ‘Bitcoin’. This is the first time that blockchain technology products have appeared in the public under the name of virtual currency, marking the formal entry of human society into the era of blockchain 1.0 technology. At that time, although the concept of virtual currency triggered public pursuit, the relevant data technology had not been widely put into practice, so the emergence of Bitcoin more presented the significance of progress in the internet technology level. As time went by, virtual currency algorithms and blockchain technology gradually moved from concept to practice. Overseas Bitcoin holders began to trade goods through Bitcoin, completely unleashing its financial attributes. In this process, due to the particularity of the virtual currency algorithm, the output of virtual currency gradually decreased in the later stage, leading to scarcity, which directly led to the sharp rise in the price of virtual currency, attracting the attention of investors worldwide. Therefore, people began to try trading virtual currencies themselves, and thus developed smart contract technology, opening the 2.0 era of blockchain technology. After this situation spread to the domestic market, some people achieved exponential increase in wealth by establishing virtual currency trading platforms or engaging in virtual currency trading activities. At this stage, relevant departments in our country had not issued any supervision methods or trading rules for virtual currencies, and the entire virtual currency market showed a spurt of growth. According to the statistics of the People’s Bank of China, in our country, the daily peak trading volume of a single virtual currency product, Bitcoin, once accounted for 90% of the total Bitcoin trading volume in the world.

　　With the explosive growth of the virtual currency trading market, the government faces two choices. One is to establish rules for virtual currency trading, relax policy restrictions on virtual currencies, and recognize the legality of virtual currency transactions; the other is to curb the momentum of virtual currency trading development and prevent financial risks from the source generated by virtual currency trading activities. In the process of evaluating the virtual currency trading policy, relevant departments must consider both the public’s property safety and the current situation of virtual currency trading in our country. In the end, China still chose a relatively conservative policy pathonline casino method，We need you. In December 2013, the People’s Bank of China and other 5 ministries issued the

　　(Three) Prohibition of Issuance Stage

　　After the implementation of the ‘Notice’ for 4 years, relevant departments have gradually clarified the value logic of virtual currencies and the cost composition of supervision through market research and the study of technical algorithms. Against this background, the People’s Bank of China and 7 other ministries jointly formulated the ‘Notice on Preventing Risks of Token Issuance and Financing’ (hereinafter referred to as the ‘Notice’) in 2017, making the country’s policy stance on the issue clear. The ‘Notice’ explicitly prohibits any activities related to the issuance of virtual currencies within China, and requires all trading platforms not to engage in any redemption business related to virtual currencies, and indicates that the trading platforms for virtual currencies will be gradually abolished after the issuance of the ‘Notice’. As a result, China has become the first country in the world to adopt strict regulatory policies on virtual currency trading. During this period, the virtual currencies to be issued within China were greatly affected. After the issuance of the policy banning the issuance of virtual currencies, the number of virtual currency transactions in China also showed a continuous downward trend. However, since the content of the ‘Notice’ did not involve the overseas market, its effectiveness was limited to the domestic market. Therefore, some resolute virtual currency speculators quickly found alternative virtual currency trading venues overseas. And the price of virtual currencies, after a short-term decline, resumed its upward trend. That is to say, after the issuance of the ‘Notice’, the tightening of policies did not completely achieve the effect of curbing virtual currency trading, but instead led traders to bring their trading venues and capital from the domestic market to overseas, which further increased the difficulty of supervision.

　　(4) The stage of comprehensive prohibition

　　From 2017 to 2021, the volume of virtual currency trading in our country has continuously decreased, and the policy implementation margin has expanded accordingly. Based on this, the People’s Bank of China has once again jointly formulated the ‘Notice on Further Preventing and Handling the Risks of Speculation and Manipulation of Online casino and How to find it Transactions’ (hereinafter referred to as the ‘Further Notice’), which comprehensively bans related virtual currency trading activities. The relevant departments clearly state in the ‘Further Notice’ that business activities related to Online casino and How to find it are illegal financial activities. Up to this point, the trading of virtual currencies in our country has been explicitly prohibited at the policy and administrative law level. In other words, starting from September 2021, there are no administratively legitimate virtual currency trading activities in our country anymore.

　　The ‘Further Notice’ once again emphasizes that virtual currencies do not possess ‘legal tender’ status, that is, they do not have the monetary attributes recognized by the state, nor are they legal tender; it explicitly states that virtual currency trading services conducted through the internet at overseas virtual currency exchanges also fall under illegal financial services. Therefore, any business activities related to virtual currencies, such as accepting virtual currency, issuing tokens for financing, and trading derivatives related to Online casino and How to find it, which involve the illegal issuance of token coupons, unauthorized public offering of securities, illegal operation of futures business, and illegal fund-raising, are strictly prohibited. In addition, if the issuance or transfer of related virtual currencies is suspected of criminal offenses, the criminal responsibilities of the relevant involved personnel shall be pursued according to law.

　　Up to now, the policy for dealing with virtual currencies has basically taken shape, but the relevant provisions are relatively general in terms of the identification of criminal charges, and do not provide effective detailed provisions for the specific judicial identification work of criminal cases. In the face of this situation, the Supreme People’s Court has officially clarified the act of illegal fund-raising through virtual currency transactions as one of the patterns of illegal fund-raising in the ‘Interpretation’, in order to be able to correspond to the pre-emptive management policy through the improvement of criminal rules and improve the regulatory system for virtual currency transactions. However, it is noteworthy that this judicial interpretation only adds the identification situation of illegal fund-raising through virtual currency transactions, but does not specifically state what kind of virtual currency transactions should be included in the identification category of criminal crimes. This requires a deeper legal exploration through the study of the technical characteristics of the relevant involved virtual currencies and the behavior patterns of the suspects.

　　Secondly, the scope of virtual currencies that can become ‘illegal fund-raising tools’

　　In the face of illegal fund-raising activities of virtual currency type, the first problem to be solved is ‘what kind of virtual currency can become a criminal tool for illegal fund-raising’? In this regard, it is necessary to analyze from two aspects.

　　Firstly, it is necessary to determine whether it conforms to the technical characteristics of virtual currencies. The generation and trading of virtual currencies should be based on the internet blockchain technology. However, network currencies such as online game coins and QQ coins, which are directly issued by certain enterprises for the purpose of exchanging services or products provided by the enterprise, do not adopt blockchain technology. In essence, they are network virtual products, gift certificates, or IOUs generated by recharging, lacking scarcity and appreciation ability, and do not have financial attributes. They are not Online casino and How to find it. Some people also believe that virtual currencies based on blockchain technology and network currencies issued by internet companies, such as QQ coins, are technically analyzed as network data and have the same functionality. Therefore, it is proposed that network currencies such as QQ coins should be included in the scope of Online casino and How to find it. However, the author believes that although network currencies such as QQ coins and online game coins are also internet data codes in essence, they are fundamentally different from virtual currencies based on blockchain technology because these products must rely on a network service provider to generate their utility. Specifically, online game coins and other network currencies are fundamentally just service certificates provided by network service providers, not algorithmic currencies. Even if it is believed that such certificates are also network data, this data only contains user payment information and information about redeemable services, but does not have independent virtual value. Users can only use network currencies to obtain corresponding services from network service providers, and generally cannot transfer them to third parties. Therefore, online game coins and other network currencies do not have the technical ability to constitute illegal fund-raising activities, and should not be included in the category of virtual currencies.

　　Secondly, it is necessary to see whether it conforms to the financial characteristics of virtual currency. The transaction price of virtual currency lacks tangible value or state credit support and has typical virtuality. In other words, the price of Online casino and How to find it should only be affected by market demand, and it does not have the complete value storage function and value standard function of a complete currency. From this point of view, whether it is an Online casino and How to find it with a relatively high maturity like Bitcoin, or a newly issued or low market awareness Online casino and How to find it, it can become a criminal tool for absorbing public deposits. However, it is noteworthy that the use of high maturity Online casino and How to find it to implement the behavior of illegal absorption of public deposits is relatively rare at this stage. This is mainly because, in general, high maturity Online casino and How to find it are scarce, valuable, and stable in the market, and it is difficult to become a criminal tool in reality. For example, if someone wants to achieve the purpose of absorbing public deposits through the method of trading Bitcoin, they must at least hold a certain amount of Bitcoin and find a willing-to-spend-a-lot-of-money off-exchange buyer group. According to the current price of Bitcoin, each coin is about 20,000 US dollars. In this regard, Bitcoin holders can completely cash in their products through on-exchange transactions. Even if Bitcoin holders are willing to take risks, because of the openness of market prices, it is difficult for them to achieve the purpose of absorbing public deposits. It should be stated that the discussion here is based on the assumption that a few high maturity Online casino and How to find it can maintain a high price for a long time. If such Online casino and How to find it appear a continuous decline in price in the future, then the related transaction behavior will also meet the conditions for illegal absorption of public deposits.

　　Three, the behavioral patterns of illegal fund-raising through virtual currency transactions

　　As previously mentioned, virtual currency transactions can be divided into two specific behavioral patterns, namely issuance and transfer. Among them, issuance is the first transaction involving the public after the virtual currency is produced, while transfer is divided into three specific methods according to the different application scenarios of specific blockchain technology, namely private transfer, one-to-many type public transfer, and one-to-many type public transfer. Because private transfer lacks openness and sociality, and one-to-many type transfer lacks attractiveness, this article is limited to the discussion of the behavioral patterns of illegal fund-raising through virtual currency transactions, focusing only on virtual currency issuance and one-to-many type public transfer.

　　Firstly, for the issuance of virtual currencies, it is different from physical currencies or digital Renminbi. It does not inherently possess the value of use generated by labor, nor does it have the recognition of entity value or the endorsement of state credit. This means that the trading ability and market value of virtual currencies before issuance are both ‘zero’. And just because of this, there arises a situation where the risks and returns of the issuer and the buyer of virtual currencies are not proportional. In short, all transactions after issuance will be beneficial to the issuer and will most likely bring asset appreciation. As for the risks of virtual currencies after issuance, they are entirely borne by the buyers of virtual currencies. When the issuer sells part or all of the virtual currencies held to the general public and explicitly or implicitly indicates that the virtual currencies issued by them have great potential for appreciation, and thereby gradually forms the first group of buyers, the virtual currencies obtained by the first group of buyers who buy virtual currencies from the issuer are of zero value. That is to say, the issuance of virtual currencies, in essence, is the act of the issuer making profits by means of products with zero value. In this process, the issuer’s own input cost tends infinitely towards zero, but has the opportunity to mobilize huge capital investments and make huge profits, which is obviously speculative and speculative, and is a typical act of getting something for nothing. Assuming that the first group of buyers no longer continue trading after purchasing or the issuer has sold all the virtual currencies, then the issuer has absorbed the price paid by the first group of buyers for the virtual currencies, and the first round of fund absorption is completed. Based on this, if the first group of buyers sells the virtual currencies in their hands to the second group, and the second group sells them to the third group, and so on, the price of virtual currencies will change with the transaction. At this point, the price of the unissued virtual currencies held by the issuer will also change. In this process, the virtual currencies originally of no value in the hands of the issuer will appreciate due to the subsequent transfer behavior of others. This seems to be an investment return, but because the total amount of capital in the entire cycle does not change, no new value is created, and it is just a simple capital turnover, so in fact, it is also the process of the issuer absorbing the funds of subsequent buyers. In other words, the issuer of virtual currencies uses a minimal one-time cost and achieves the continuous absorption of public property through the automatic execution of subsequent virtual currency transactions. Similarly, because of the openness and social nature of the one-to-many transfer of stakeholders, it can be simply understood as a ‘quasi-issue’ or ‘secondary issue’ behavior to some extent, and the process of absorbing funds by the transferor is no different from that of the issuer.

　　Secondly, the issuance and mass trading of virtual currencies lack official pre-checks and information disclosure channels, which leads to an imbalance of information between the issuers or sellers of virtual currencies and the buyers. In other words, in the process of issuing or mass trading of virtual currencies, the issuers or sellers are in a superior information position compared to the buyers. And this information advantage may, under the circumstances of the gradual expansion of the buyer group, evolve from simple unequal transactions to illegal fund-raising events facing the public. Some may ask whether it is possible to refer to the regulatory measures in the process of stock public offering to standardize the issuance and mass trading of virtual currencies in order to eliminate or alleviate this situation? In my opinion, the issuance and mass trading of virtual currencies are very different from the public offering and trading of stocks, and cannot be generalized. First, stockholders have a certain degree of say over the issuers of stockslottery methodThe latest plan. In other words, as shareholders of the company, stockholders have the right to participate in corporate decision-making. In this process, they can continuously and fully understand the relevant dynamics and asset conditions of the company, and can make independent judgments on the value of the stocks in their hands by fully utilizing this information. At the very least, they can sell off their stocks to avoid greater losses. On the other hand, the rights of virtual currency buyers are very limited, and compared with stocks, the risk is greater. Second, the technical background of the two is different. For the public offering and subsequent trading of stocks, they are all conducted publicly and can be supervised by all parties during the process. In contrast, virtual currency trading has strong concealment, and transaction information is only known to the parties involved in the transaction process and is not disturbed by outsiders. It can be considered that virtual currency trading has stronger privacy and can better protect the security of transactions. However, at the same time, if one party in the transaction has evil intentions, due to the lack of relief measures in the entire transaction process, the other party will inevitably suffer unavoidable harm.

　　IV. The judgment of the ‘four characteristics’ of illegal fund-raising crimes involving virtual currency trading

　　For illegal fund-raising activities, there are two specific objective behaviors, namely the illegal absorption of public deposits by individuals or organizations without approval from the competent authorities, and the disguised absorption of public deposits by individuals or organizations without approval from the competent authorities. Regarding this, Article 1, Paragraph 1 of the previous ‘Interpretation’ has explicitly stipulated the four constituent elements of the crime of illegal fund-raising, namely, its illegality, publicity,诱lucrative nature, and social nature. It can be considered that the judgment of these ‘four characteristics’ is the key to determining whether related virtual currency trading behaviors can constitute illegal fund-raising crimes in judicial practice.

　　(I) Illegality

　　“Illegality” refers to the situation where funds are absorbed by individuals without the legal permit of relevant departments or by using the form of legitimate business operations. According to the provisions of the “Opinions on Several Issues Concerning the Handling of Criminal Cases of Illegal Fund-raising” jointly issued by the Supreme People’s Court, Supreme People’s Procuratorate, and Ministry of Public Security (hereinafter referred to as the “Opinions”), when evaluating whether the facts of a case have the feature of “illegality”, it can be referred to the normative documents related to China’s financial management. This indicates that the focus of the judgment of illegality is mainly on whether the behavior of the subject in absorbing funds from the public is legal, rather than on whether the transaction behavior itself is legal. That is to say, although the related business activities of virtual currency trading were banned in an all-round manner after the issuance of the “Further Notice” of the People’s Bank of China in 2021, it does not mean that the subject was legally qualified to absorb deposits from the public before 2021, and specific judgments should be made on a case-by-case basis. Generally speaking, illegality is usually manifested as the lack of corresponding qualifications of the subject or the qualifications held cannot cover the content of the behavior. For virtual currency transactions, although there is no officially recognized special business license document for virtual currency transactions in China at present, before 2021, some local industrial and commercial departments in China issued business licenses to certain enterprises, and recorded relevant virtual currency trading business items in the scope of business. For such situations, it should be evaluated according to the specific facts of the case. If individuals engage in illegal fund-raising under the name of virtual currency transactions, they should be identified as a situation of “absorbing funds from the public by using the form of legitimate business operations”.

　　(II) Publicity

　　“Publicity” refers to the public promotion through channels such as the Internet, media, promotional conferences, brochures, mobile information, and so on. When judging this feature, it is necessary to distinguish the specific transaction scenarios of virtual currency sellers, and use whether their behavior has publicity as a breakthrough point. Comprehensive consideration should be given to factors such as promotional channels in the transaction process to complete the judgment of the criminality of their behavior. Specifically, if the parties involved in virtual currency transactions take the private transfer method for a few individual transactions, such behavior does not have the characteristics of mass involvement and should not be regarded as having illegal fund-raising behavior. Conversely, if individuals use media or network environments, as well as offline direct sales or pyramid selling methods, to promote or introduce virtual currencies to the public in search of trading opportunities, it should be considered as meeting the constituent elements of illegal fund-raising. It should be clarified that the consideration of promotional channels or methods here is limited to the identification of publicity and does not involve social discussions. There is a fundamental difference between the two; the former ends with the “public nature of the criminal objective”, while the latter ends with the “non-specificity of the legal interests violated”. Compared with the latter, publicity focuses more on the examination of the behavior of criminals in the promotion aspect.

　　(Three) Lure

　　The

　　(Four) Social nature

　　In the final analysis, when judging the

　　V. Other issues in the process of identifying illegal fund-raising crimes involving virtual currency transactions

　　The ‘Interpretation’ first explicitly defines virtual currency transactions as one of the models of illegal fund-raising. However, how should the amount of the crime and the relevant behaviors occurring before the amendment of this ‘Interpretation’ be identified? In addition, what should be done if the issuance and trading behaviors of ‘Online casino and How to find it’ simultaneously violate two or more charges?

　　(I) The retroactive effect of the ‘Interpretation’ on the illegal fund-raising behavior of ‘Online casino and How to find it’
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　　The Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate issued the ‘Regulations on the Time Effectiveness of Judicial Interpretations Applicable to Criminal Law’ in 2001, which clearly states: ‘Judicial interpretations shall take effect from the date of issuance or promulgation, and their effectiveness shall apply to the period of law enforcement; for acts occurring before the implementation of new judicial interpretations, if there are relevant judicial interpretations in force at the time of the act, they shall be handled according to the judicial interpretations in force at the time. However, if the application of the new judicial interpretations is beneficial to the accused or defendant, the new judicial interpretations shall be applied.’ According to this regulation, although the previous ‘Interpretation’ did not specify ‘Online casino and How to find it’ as a typical model of illegal fund-raising activities, this does not mean that the illegal fund-raising activities of ‘Online casino and How to find it’ transactions before the amendment of the ‘Interpretation’ can be exempted from criminal liability. It needs to be clarified that the provisions of the amended ‘Interpretation’ on virtual currency transactions are not subject to the rule of ‘retroactive application of the lighter penalty’. Instead, the effectiveness of this provision should be traced back to the time when the ‘Criminal Law’ stipulated crimes of illegal fund-raising. That is to say, for ‘Online casino and How to find it’ transaction behaviors occurring after the amendment of the ‘Interpretation’ and before the stipulation of the ‘Criminal Law’, if they meet the essential characteristics of illegal fund-raising crimes, they should be identified as illegal fund-raising crimes. The provisions of the ‘Interpretation’ on ‘Online casino and How to find it’ are essentially an emphasis, reminder, and warning on such behaviors as illegal fund-raising means. The reason lies in the fact that this type of new means with financial characteristics is very difficult to detect and has strong concealment and cover-up capabilities.

　　(Two) The concurrence relationship between the crime of illegal fund-raising and other crimes in the transaction of online casinos and how to find them

　　Generally speaking, in the issuance, transfer, and other activities of online casinos and how to find them in illegal fund-raising activities, in addition to violating the crimes of illegal fund-raising, they may also violate other charges. Among them, if the other charges involved form a hypothetical concurrence relationship with the crimes of illegal fund-raising, they should be handled according to the heavier charge. Because the crimes of illegal fund-raising mainly include the crime of illegal吸收public deposits and the crime of fund-raising fraud. Therefore, if, in line with the ‘four characteristics’ of illegal fund-raising, the perpetrator intends to unlawfully appropriate others’ property in the form of online casinos and how to find them, they will violate the crime of fund-raising fraud. Of course, it is not excluded that there is also a possibility of constituting the common crime of fraud. In addition, the transaction of online casinos and how to find them may also violate pyramid scheme crimes. According to Article 13 of the ‘Interpretation’: ‘If funds are illegally absorbed from the public through pyramid scheme means, it constitutes the crime of illegal absorption of public deposits or the crime of fund-raising fraud, and at the same time constitutes the crime of organizing and leading pyramid scheme activities, it shall be sentenced according to the heavier penalty provision.’ Without meeting the ‘four characteristics’ of illegal fund-raising, merely because of the serious disturbance of market order due to the sale and purchase of online casinos and how to find them, it may violate the crime of illegal business operation under the ‘Criminal Law’, because the issuance and trading of virtual currencies are prohibited by law. However, the author believes that once it is determined that the behavior conforms to the characteristics of ‘illegal operation’, it is difficult to simultaneously identify it as an act of illegal fund-raising using virtual currencies as a tool. Therefore, it cannot form a hypothetical concurrence relationship between the two crimes, but is either/or.

　　In this regard, the author took 2401 judgments involving the use of virtual currency, which were publicly available on the judicial document network, as a sample, and examined the judicial disposal methods before and after the issuance of the ‘Interpretation’. It was found that in the 2376 cases adjudicated before the issuance of the ‘Interpretation’, the number of cases that were ultimately qualified as fund-raising fraud or illegal吸收public deposits was 42 and 97 respectively, and the others were mostly identified as fraud, organization and leadership of pyramid selling activities, and related crimes against social management order. Because the issuance of the ‘Interpretation’ in 2021 was still relatively short, the number of criminal cases involving virtual currency that were adjudicated after its effectiveness was also relatively small. For the only 25 cases in this stage, judicial authorities mainly qualified them as crimes of assisting in cybercrime activities, fraud, and concealing and disguising criminal proceeds.

　　(3) Identification of the criminal amount of illegal fund-raising involving virtual currency transactions

　　Regarding the illegal fund-raising involving virtual currency transactions, in addition to the discussions on virtual currency trading behaviors and illegal fund-raising behaviors mentioned above, the identification of the amount of crime is also a key content in judicial practice. In this regard, the ‘Opinion’ contains relevant provisions on the identification of the amount of crime. Generally speaking, the amount of illegal fund-raising should be calculated based on the total amount of funds absorbed by the perpetrator. However, it is noteworthy that the funds absorbed by the perpetrator through virtual currency trading behaviors should only include the funds obtained directly through issuance or transfer. As for the appreciation of the virtual currency retained by the issuer during the holding process, if the issuer does not use it to exchange for property or cash, because this part of the virtual currency does not have the ability to be converted after the incident, it should not be identified as the amount of criminal proceeds. In addition, in individual case judgments, if there is a situation where the perpetrator absorbs funds from both specific groups and unspecified objects, it should be determined according to the provisions of the ‘Opinion’ on the amount of crime whether the amount needs to be accumulated. Specifically, the funds absorbed by the perpetrator from unspecified objects should be fully counted in the amount of crime. On the other hand, when the perpetrator absorbs funds from their relatives or internal personnel of the unit as specific groups, if they simultaneously meet one of the following situations: ‘knowingly allowing relatives or internal personnel of the unit to absorb funds from unspecified objects’, ‘absorbing social personnel as internal personnel for the purpose of absorbing funds’, and ‘publicly advertising to unspecified objects, relatives, or internal personnel of the unit and absorbing funds from them’, then the funds from both parts should be counted together in the amount of crime.　

　　Responsible Editor: Liu Lingmei

　　Source: Law Application, Issue 9, 2022

　　Executive Editor: Li Chunyu

　　Layout: Chen HongyiScan the QR code to follow