According to BlockBeats, on November 21, according to Sina Finance, the Songjiang District People's Court of Shanghai (hereinafter referred to as the Songjiang District People's Court) recently concluded a service contract dispute case caused by the validity of a virtual currency issuance and financing service contract.
The plaintiff, an agricultural development company (hereinafter referred to as Company X), came up with the idea of issuing virtual currency and raising funds during the ICO in 2017. Under the recommendation of the defendant, an investment management company (hereinafter referred to as Company S), it signed a (blockchain incubation agreement) with Company S, commissioned Company S to prepare a "white paper", and issued tokens on the blockchain based on mainstream blockchain smart contract technologies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.
However, a year has passed, and the tokens have still not been issued. After inquiries from Company X, Company S stated that issuing tokens requires developing the corresponding APP first, and the cost of APP development is high, which is outside their service scope. Company X should develop the APP on its own, and Company S is only responsible for the subsequent token issuance. Company X's expectations were dashed, and they filed a lawsuit in the People's Court, requesting the cancellation of the contract and a refund of the service fee of 300,000 yuan from Company S.
The judge of the Songjiang District People's Court responsible for this case stated that virtual currency, as a type of virtual commodity, has property value. Holding virtual currency is not illegal, but commercial entities cannot freely participate in virtual currency investment and trading or issue tokens on their own.