If the investigating agency tells you that the Bitcoin you sold for a value of 10 million yuan, due to your suspected use of a VPN to sell it, is illegal because bypassing the firewall is against the law, and the yuan you received from selling Bitcoin is considered illegal gains, and they plan to confiscate your ransom of 10 million, what would be your first reaction? And this has actually happened...
Are you using a VPN to log into foreign exchanges, such as registering an account on a certain trading platform to sell Bitcoin for profit, or paying a deposit to become a U trader, acting as a settlement agent to buy and sell U and earn the price difference, and you haven't received any illicit funds or had your card frozen, while still immersed in the joy of profiting from trading cryptocurrencies? Little do you know that if your actions are caught, it could be disastrous.
Just this August, a public security agency in a certain area of the country determined that the act of bypassing the Great Firewall to trade cryptocurrencies is illegal. The case involved Zhang San using a VPN to circumvent restrictions and profit from buying low and selling high in virtual currencies. Since bypassing the firewall is illegal, his profits during the trading period were confiscated, and he was fined the maximum amount of 15,000 yuan. Even his phone and computer were identified as illegal tools and confiscated. This case reminds me of a programmer from last year who bypassed the firewall for work, only to have his actions deemed illegal and his earnings of over a million confiscated.
Some say that the nature of a programmer's work is different from trading cryptocurrencies; one is a work-related activity, while trading cryptocurrencies is illegal or involves personal risk. However, currently, trading virtual currencies is not illegal, so it is the same as the background of this case. If bypassing the firewall is illegal, and profits from trading cryptocurrencies are considered illegal gains, it would just take an announcement to clarify that. You cannot bypass the firewall to trade cryptocurrencies; otherwise, the profits from trading will be confiscated.
Regarding the legality of bypassing the firewall, I will not discuss it here. The key controversy in this case lies in whether, based on Article 14 of the Interim Provisions on the Administration of International Networking of Computer Information Networks, the determination of illegal gains from bypassing the firewall includes the determination of profits from trading cryptocurrencies as illegal gains.