“Virtual currency trading is illegal and an activity prohibited by the state. How dare you come to the police?” - This is what one of the parties relayed to me by the police officer who received her. I wrote an article before (“Any virtual currency Are all currency transactions illegal? - Lawyers interpret Shandong Shouguang Public Security Press Release), analyzing that the attitude of some local grassroots public security agencies towards virtual currencies is not in line with the current national policies and regulations on virtual currency supervision. However, the reality is so helpless. It has been more than ten years since the birth of mainstream virtual currencies. There have been a large number of cases filed, prosecuted, and sentenced by judicial authorities because the victims’ virtual currencies were stolen/defrauded. However, there are still some public security agencies. In particular, grassroots public security organs do not protect the property rights of legal virtual currency holders. Therefore, it is still necessary to write a popular French article to carry out legal "preaching" activities.



Let me first state the conclusion: after virtual currency is stolen, the victim can report it to the police. If the conditions for filing a case are met, the public security organs should also accept and file the case. The reasons are as follows:
1. Virtual currency has property attributes
As early as 2013, five ministries and commissions issued the “Notice on Preventing Bitcoin Risks”, which evaluated the nature of virtual currency (represented by Bitcoin): “Bitcoin should be a specific virtual commodity.” Since it is a commodity (whether physical or virtual), it must have property attributes or property value.
For virtual currencies such as QQ coins or game coins (or game equipment) before Bitcoin, if they are stolen, cheated, or robbed, the public security organs can file a case; then, for mainstream virtual currencies with a higher degree of consensus and national When the relevant ministries and commissions have given clear characterization, it should be deemed to have property value.
Citizens should receive judicial relief when their legally held virtual currency is infringed.
2. my country does not prohibit citizens from investing in virtual currencies
Although this view is controversial at present, especially some judicial or administrative agencies believe that my country strictly prohibits anyone from investing in and trading virtual currencies. However, if we carefully study the current regulatory policies on virtual currencies in mainland my country, we cannot find any regulations that prohibit citizens from investing in virtual currencies.
Take the most authoritative "9.24 Notice" ("Notice on Further Preventing and Dealing with Speculation Risks of Virtual Currency Transactions"). Paragraph 4 of Article 1 only stipulates that "there are laws for participating in virtual currency investment and trading activities." "Risks", if a citizen invests in virtual currency and its derivatives, "if it violates public order and good customs, the relevant civil legal actions will be invalid, and the resulting losses shall be borne by the citizen himself."
What is "public order and good customs"? To put it simply, it is public order and good customs. Virtual currency investment will not involve good customs. It mainly depends on whether the investment in virtual currency will violate public order, mainly financial order. In fact, it is difficult for ordinary citizens to invest in virtual currencies to directly affect the country’s financial order. However, in practice, current courts will basically not accept civil disputes arising from investments in virtual currencies, even if they are as small as a U.
So, even if the civil legal act is invalid, it does not mean that the country prohibits virtual currency investment. The "9.24 Notice" only reminds that there are legal risks in virtual currency transactions. More importantly, the losses caused by investing in virtual currency are borne by the risk.
However, when virtual currency is stolen, the victim is not transacting with the thief. Rather, one's own legitimate property was simply stolen. When the state does not prohibit citizens from purchasing and holding virtual currencies, the act of stealing other people's virtual currencies is of course an illegal and criminal act.
3. The court has a large number of precedents supporting
In cases of virtual currency theft, there have been many cases where court judgments have been effective as support, proving that public security organs should accept and file cases of virtual currency theft that meet the conditions for filing.​
In practice, when the victim's virtual currency is stolen, some courts convict and sentence the crime of illegally obtaining computer information system data; in some cases, the crime is theft, and the amount determined is based on the amount the victim purchased when he purchased the stolen virtual currency. (This is a situation where the virtual currency appreciates in value after being stolen. If it depreciates, the amount of the theft is highly controversial).



4. Guidelines for victims to report crimes
For victims, they should at least do the following actions before going to the police to report a crime:
First, collect evidence that you legally own the stolen virtual currency. If you purchased it on an exchange, take screenshots of the purchase records (such as chat records with U merchants), RMB transfer records, virtual currency transfer records, and virtual currency exchange records (if any), and save them. It is best to print them out. If you purchased it from friends or even netizens, you should also take screenshots of the chat records and save them. It is best to print them out.
The second is the on-chain path of the stolen virtual currency being transferred out, the addresses it passed through after being stolen from your own wallet, and the evidence of which address it ended up at;
Third, pay attention to the possibility that your wallet private key, mnemonic phrase, mobile phone, etc. are leaked or accessed by others;
In addition, qualified friends can also hire a blockchain security team to investigate and track to help identify possible suspects. In this case, the probability of the police filing a case will be greatly increased.