curator

According to a report by the Procuratorial Daily, researchers from the People's Procuratorate of Yuhu District, Xiangtan City, Hunan Province, and the Law School of Xiangtan University have jointly written an article proposing a systematic response plan to the regulatory dilemmas of money laundering crimes using virtual currency. The article points out that current judicial practice faces three major dilemmas: first, Article 191 of the Criminal Law limits money laundering crimes to seven types of upstream crimes, resulting in many cases being treated as "concealment crimes"; second, methods such as mixers, privacy coins, and cross-chain transfers lead to fragmented evidence chains, making traditional investigative methods difficult to penetrate; third, conflicts in the legal attributes of virtual currency, a vacuum in procedural rules, and barriers to cross-border cooperation make it difficult to recover assets.In response, the article suggests promoting "dual investigations for one case," establishing the principle of self-authentication of blockchain data, constructing a tiered standard of proof, and establishing a national-level custody and disposal platform for involved virtual currencies, while actively promoting the signing of special agreements for international criminal justice assistance in virtual currency crimes.

According to the disclosure from the People's Procuratorate of Jing'an District, Shanghai, recently, the court prosecuted a certain Li for suspected illegal business operations in a criminal gang that used virtual currency for cross-border money laundering and illegal foreign exchange. On June 10, the case was heard in court and a verdict was announced on the spot, marking a conclusion to a series of illegal business operations spanning three years and involving over 200 million yuan. In July 2024, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange discovered abnormal clues regarding Company Z using virtual currency to transfer assets for domestic clients during routine monitoring, and subsequently referred the case to the public security authorities for handling.Investigations revealed that Company Z was registered overseas in 2019, promoting itself under the guise of a "private bank" and developing a virtual banking app to create a facade of legitimacy, but it had not obtained the necessary foreign exchange business operation license in China and was essentially engaged in illegal foreign exchange activities. The gang targeted high-net-worth individuals with funding needs for overseas property purchases, immigration, and studying abroad, using intermediaries to attract clients, with customer managers, traders, and customer service personnel facilitating the currency exchange process. Clients purchased virtual currency from virtual currency exchangers with renminbi and transferred it to Company Z's overseas virtual wallet, after which the gang exchanged the virtual currency for foreign currency abroad and transferred it to the clients' designated overseas accounts. There was no actual cross-border flow of funds; instead, settlements were made through domestic and foreign capital pools, with Company Z charging a 3% currency exchange service fee and paying intermediaries a 0.5% commission.A total of nine individuals have been brought to justice in this case, while one main suspect is still under investigation. After review, the relevant personnel collectively violated national laws by illegally buying and selling foreign exchange, disrupting financial order, and the circumstances were serious or particularly serious, warranting criminal liability for illegal business operations. The court sentenced five individuals, including Gao and Li, to prison terms ranging from six years to two years and six months, and imposed fines ranging from 1.5 million yuan to 300,000 yuan; for Chen, Huang, and four others, due to lighter criminal circumstances, relatively smaller amounts involved, and voluntary confession, the procuratorial authority made a decision of relative non-prosecution according to the law.

According to Xinhua News Agency, the Supreme People's Procuratorate held a press conference today. Deputy Chief Procurator Miao Shengming introduced that the procuratorial organs are deeply investigating and thoroughly examining "self-money laundering" and "third-party money laundering" crimes, vigorously promoting the recovery of drug-related assets, and ensuring comprehensive coverage in the investigation and prosecution of drug-related money laundering crimes. From January last year to May this year, more than 1,200 people have been prosecuted for drug-related money laundering crimes. The Supreme People's Procuratorate has taken over the supervision of a major cross-border smuggling, trafficking, transporting drugs, and money laundering case involving Li Moubo and others, handled by the Chongqing procuratorial organs. Li Moubo laundered more than 48 million yuan through virtual currency and was sentenced to death after being punished for multiple crimes according to the law.

According to Shandong Legal News, a Bitcoin theft case prosecuted by the Li Cang District Prosecutor's Office in Qingdao has been sentenced. The defendant, Zhang, was sentenced to 10 years and 9 months in prison for theft and fined 100,000 yuan.In the early hours of a certain day in 2024, the virtual currency wallet of the victim, Feng, was quietly accessed, and 107 Bitcoins were transferred, equivalent to over 22.54 million yuan at the market price on that day. It was found that Feng had entrusted an acquaintance, Zhang, to assist with the operation. During the process of registering the wallet on behalf of Feng, Zhang obtained the mnemonic phrase, and after multiple attempts in the early morning, he cracked the wallet and transferred the Bitcoins. After being apprehended, Zhang claimed that his actions were a "protective takeover" to prevent the Bitcoins from being stolen by others. The prosecution traced the funds and found that the stolen Bitcoins were transferred multiple times and exchanged for over 660,000 yuan, exposing his lies.The prosecution determined that Bitcoin has economic value and exclusive control, meeting the core characteristics of "property" in criminal law, and can be the object of theft. The actual proceeds from the sale of the stolen Bitcoins, amounting to over 660,000 yuan, were used as the basis for the theft amount. After the defendant appealed, in November 2025, the Qingdao Intermediate People's Court ruled to dismiss the appeal and upheld the original sentence. This case is a typical example of Qingdao's legal punishment of crimes in the virtual currency field, clearly conveying the judicial stance: activities related to virtual currency must be conducted within the legal framework, and stealing others' virtual property also constitutes a crime.

According to Token Terminal data, Steakhouse Fi's leading advantage in the Morpho curator ecosystem has expanded to approximately $1 billion, far exceeding the second place. A year ago, there was almost no significant gap between the protocol and its competitors, indicating rapid growth and market consolidation over the past year.Morpho operates on a curator model, where multiple treasury managers compete for liquidity by offering different risk-return configurations and strategies. Steakhouse Fi's dominance indicates that it has successfully achieved differentiation or gained significant user trust within the Morpho ecosystem. The curator ecosystem remains an active competitive area in the DeFi space, with various protocols increasingly relying on specialized managers to expand capital deployment across different risk levels and strategies.

Recently, a first-instance verdict was announced in a case of concealing and hiding criminal proceeds, which was prosecuted by the People's Procuratorate of Yuetang District, Xiangtan City, Hunan Province, China. A new type of money laundering chain, disguised as a Maotai liquor transaction and using virtual currency as a channel, was completely dismantled, involving an amount of over 6.84 million yuan, with all 8 defendants sentenced. The gang had clear divisions of labor and strong concealment.Chen connected with upstream sources through overseas encrypted communication software, received telecom fraud proceeds, and contacted "U merchants" to complete the exchange and circulation of virtual currency; Xie was responsible for providing tools for the crime and keeping track of financial details; Huang used Maotai liquor trading as a cover to disguise the trajectory of the transfer of criminal proceeds with real transaction shells; the remaining members assisted with fund settlement and information transmission. The gang used fake Maotai liquor transactions as the "cleaning" stage, disguising overseas fraud proceeds as legitimate business income, converting them into virtual currency to return to upstream, and taking an illegal commission of 8% for each "cleaning."In December 2023, with a report from a victim, this black and gray industrial chain hidden under the guise of liquor trading surfaced. After the incident, the People's Procuratorate of Yuetang District intervened in the investigation early, guiding the public security organs to sort through nearly 20 million yuan in fund flows and massive electronic data, achieving a full-chain crackdown and comprehensive evidence collection. The court ultimately sentenced Xie and 7 other principal and accomplice offenders to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from 2 to 6 years for the crime of concealing and hiding criminal proceeds; the relatively minor offender Liang was sentenced to 1 year in prison with 1 year of probation.

The Chief Prosecutor of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, Ying Yong, delivered the work report of the Supreme People's Procuratorate at the Fourth Session of the 14th National People's Congress, in which he pointed out to strengthen anti-money laundering efforts, prosecuting 3,259 individuals for money laundering crimes using virtual currencies and underground banks. He also emphasized the legal punishment of telecom and internet fraud crimes, prosecuting 69,000 individuals.

According to the official account of the Shenzhen People's Procuratorate, recently, the Shenzhen People's Procuratorate of Guangdong Province, after legal review, prosecuted defendants Sui Guangyi, Ma Xiaoqiu, and 30 others for committing illegal fundraising crimes using Shenzhen Dingyifeng Asset Management Co., Ltd., Hong Kong Dingyifeng International Holdings Group Co., Ltd., and their affiliated companies in Shenzhen and other locations.According to the relevant provisions of the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China and the Criminal Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China, they were prosecuted for crimes including fundraising fraud, illegal absorption of public deposits, money laundering, embezzlement, smuggling across national (border) boundaries, and providing false certification documents to the Intermediate People's Court of Shenzhen, Guangdong Province.Previous reports indicated that the subjects involved in the case were suspected of engaging in illegal financial activities by issuing fictitious financial products and "DDO digital options," among other methods.

According to Xinhua News Agency, at the national procurators' meeting held in Beijing, the Supreme People's Procuratorate made arrangements to fully utilize the power of the rule of law to serve high-quality development and other aspects. The Supreme Procuratorate requires that procuratorial organs must legally safeguard economic and financial security, severely punish serious economic crimes, and promote the creation of a law-based business environment.The Supreme Procuratorate demands strict punishment for crimes such as smuggling and exporting strategic minerals to safeguard national strategic interests; in conjunction with the Financial Regulatory Administration and others, legally govern the illegal intermediary chaos in the financial sector, severely punish illegal fundraising, financial fraud, and other crimes, and comprehensively combat the financial "black and gray industries," ensuring the stable operation of finance and protecting the property safety of the people; increase efforts in anti-money laundering work, focusing on punishing crimes that utilize underground banks and virtual currency for money laundering. The Supreme Procuratorate proposed to deepen the rule of law construction in the capital market in conjunction with the China Securities Regulatory Commission, improve the mechanism for stationed securities procuratorial work, and strictly punish securities crimes such as financial fraud and market manipulation to maintain the safety of the capital market.

According to the disclosure from the Xiamen Procuratorate's official account, a salesperson from a certain distribution company in Fujian incurred huge debts due to involvement in virtual currency investments and began embezzling funds from spring 2024.The employee unauthorizedly replaced the company's public payment code with a personal WeChat payment code and bank account, guiding clients to transfer educational material subscription payments directly into their personal account. The report shows that the employee embezzled over 1.53 million yuan from the company and invested all related funds into Bitcoin and other virtual currencies for trading, attempting to profit through speculation, but ultimately lost all the funds. The Chang'an District Procuratorate has prosecuted them for embezzlement, and the court sentenced them to two years and three months in prison, along with a fine.

The People's Procuratorate of Pudong New District, Shanghai, has disclosed a case involving an illegal industry chain for querying and selling citizens' location information.The individuals involved settled through the exchange of virtual currency, profiting illegally. Judicial identification shows that over 1,000 pieces of illegally queried location information were involved, with a total illegal profit amounting to approximately 1.17 million yuan. Currently, the relevant personnel have been sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from three years and six months to one year, with fines ranging from 500,000 yuan to 40,000 yuan.

According to the disclosure from the Shanghai Procuratorial WeChat official account, the Shanghai Baoshan District Procuratorate, in handling a case of occupational crime, successfully initiated supervision on 24 cases involving 24 individuals through a penetrating review of funds, tracking the flow of funds. Prosecutors stated that the number of accounts involved in the underground money laundering gang was numerous, making the case very challenging, with a massive scale of financial transactions and a money laundering amount reaching 1.8 billion yuan. Ultimately, through pursuit and prosecution, they cracked down on money laundering activities that utilized virtual currency for cross-border transfer of illicit funds.In response to new and complex money laundering crimes such as underground money houses and virtual currencies, the Baoshan District Procuratorate guided public security agencies to penetrate fund accounts, clarify the sources and destinations of funds, secure electronic data, and make precise and effective accusations, fully ensuring the quality and effectiveness of the investigation and handling of money laundering cases.

ChainCatcher News, China's Chief Prosecutor and the Procurator-General of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, Ying Yong, pointed out in his keynote speech at the 15th China-ASEAN Chief Prosecutors' Conference held in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region that crimes such as money laundering and bribery using virtual currencies and virtual assets are characterized by concealment, deception, and complexity, making investigation and evidence collection difficult, fact determination challenging, and fund recovery hard, which brings new challenges to combating and governance, seriously harming the property security of citizens in various countries and severely jeopardizing the financial security and social stability of nations.Strengthening international cooperation in anti-money laundering, anti-corruption, and fund recovery in the digital age has become an important consensus in the current international community.

ChainCatcher news, the official website of the Supreme People's Procuratorate has announced a case involving the fabrication of false national project implementation for fraud related to virtual currency. The suspects attracted members to participate by posting promotional information on social media, holding online meetings to explain the benefits of the project, and within just six months, they attracted over 1,900 participants nationwide. Members participating in the project were required to convert RMB into USDT for recharge and transfer on the software.According to the judicial accounting appraisal of electronic data by the Huimin County Procuratorate in Shandong Province, the suspects defrauded over 6 million yuan, and they were prosecuted for fraud. The defendants were sentenced to imprisonment for three years and six months to three years.

ChainCatcher news, the Supreme People's Procuratorate has released the "Announcement on the Establishment of Research Topics for the Application of Procuratorial Theory in 2025." In 2025, the Supreme People's Procuratorate has established 234 research topics related to the application of procuratorial theory, among which 10 are related to virtual currency, including: "Research on the Disposal Path of Criminal Involved Virtual Currency," "Research on the Regulation of Virtual Currency Crimes and Judicial Disposal Issues," "Research on Criminal Legal Risks and Response Strategies under the Rapid Development of Virtual Currency," "Research on the Legal Attributes of Virtual Currency and Judicial Disposal Paths," "Research on Practical Issues in Criminal Justice Disposal of Involved Virtual Currency," "Research on Evidence Review in Virtual Currency Cases," "Research on the Application of Criminal Law to Virtual Currency Crimes," "Research on Improving the Disposal and Procuratorial Supervision Mechanism for Virtual Currency," "Dilemmas in the Criminal Law Regulation of Virtual Currency Crimes and System Improvement," and "Research on the Application of Law to Virtual Currency."

ChainCatcher news, according to CoinDesk, veteran Ethereum advocate William Mougayar will serve as the curator and editor of the Ethereum Market Research Center (EMRC), aiming to enhance Ethereum's visibility among institutional and professional audiences. The EMRC will integrate original research, curated materials, industry insights, and real-time news to fill the educational communication gap. Mougayar pointed out that while Ethereum holds a dominant market position, its communication efforts are not as strong as those of competing chains like Solana, and the EMRC will help reshape and unify ecosystem information.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Paper, the Chief Prosecutor of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, Ying Yong, delivered the work report of the Supreme Procuratorate at the third session of the 14th National People's Congress. In 2024, the procuratorial organs prosecuted 825 individuals for securities-related crimes such as financial fraud and insider trading, and 3,032 individuals for money laundering crimes involving the use of "virtual currency" to transfer criminal proceeds.

ChainCatcher news, according to Caixin, the Supreme People's Procuratorate announced today the situation of the comprehensive deepening of procuratorial reform work in 2024. It mentioned that relevant departments will collaborate to formulate judicial interpretations, improve judicial norms for punishing criminal cases related to securities and futures, money laundering, and harming tax collection and management, and more effectively punish crimes such as illegally transferring assets abroad using virtual currencies, tax evasion, and fraudulently obtaining export tax refunds.Improve the equal protection mechanism for various types of business entities, and legally supervise and correct the use of criminal means to intervene in economic disputes, illegal sealing, confiscation, and freezing of property, especially issues related to illegal cross-regional law enforcement and profit-driven law enforcement. Enhance the working mechanism of the Supreme People's Procuratorate stationed at the China Securities Regulatory Commission, and strengthen the coordination and cooperation between financial regulatory enforcement and judicial work.

ChainCatcher news, according to Jinshi reports, Du Xueyi, director of the Economic Crime Prosecution Office of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, stated during a guest appearance on the Supreme Procuratorate's director interview event on February 13 that the current situation of telecom network fraud crimes is still severe and complex, with a high incidence.First, the cross-border and monopolistic nature of fraud groups has emerged, with criminals setting up "industrial parks" and "technology parks" abroad, managing and controlling through means such as providing guarantees and armed protection, taking a cut or charging fees to obtain illicit funds, forming large criminal organizations.Second, the methods of fraud are increasingly diverse and complex, with combinations such as "pig butchering + false investment," "gambling fraud," and "fraud and extortion," which are more deceptive and have led to serious violent crimes such as intentional injury.Third, the modules of black industry crimes are becoming more stable, with criminal tools and software being simple and easy to use, resulting in a broader population being drawn into criminal activities. Fourth, the channels for funds are intertwined and concealed, with virtual currency "money laundering" becoming a mainstream method, helping criminals to transfer fraudulent funds in "small amounts and multiple transactions," making it difficult to trace back.