Shanghai Court: Personal Crypto Holding, Trading Not Illegal Business

A criminal adjudication seminar on virtual-currency cases was co-hosted by the Shanghai No. 2 Intermediate People's Court and Renmin University of China Law School on January 8, BlockBeats reports. The discussion summary stated that in money-laundering cases involving virtual assets, determination of "subjective knowledge" should be made through holistic evaluation to prevent objective attribution, and that the offense is complete once concealment conduct is carried out. For illegal business offenses connected to virtual currency, the summary noted that conduct consisting only of personal coin holding or speculative trading generally is not recognized as illegal business. Those who knowingly assist others in illegal foreign-exchange trading by converting via virtual currency, in serious circumstances, should be treated as accomplices to illegal business operations.