Trading bitcoin and cryptocurrencies is now “a form of illegal capital acquisition” in China, according to the country’s Supreme Judicial Court.
Last Thursday, February 24, the authorities of that country indicated that transactions made with “virtual currencies” are illegal, and carry serious penalties.
The document makes some amendments to another provision of the Central Bank of China, amendments that will take effect from March 1.
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Those suspected of carrying out transactions with large sums of money will face sentences of between 3 and 10 years in prison and fines equivalent to between 8,000 and 80,000 dollars in yuan (RMB).
In the same way, those who advertise through any means to publicize any of the prohibited activities are exposed to being penalized. With this basically advertising for cryptocurrencies is prohibited on the Internet, television, print media and messaging services, and other media.
Positively, it is established that pyramid schemes are also illegal, and even his knowledge of them would lead to the imputation of crimes of complicity to those involved.
Knowledge of the fraudulent issuance of bonds, the illegal absorption of public deposits, the unauthorized issuance of shares, bonds of companies and corporations, the raising of capital or the organization and direction of pyramid schemes and other crimes, providing publicity and promotion for these, will be punished as a crime of complicity in these crimes
Supreme Court of Justice of China
Historically, China has tried to ban cryptocurrencies from different angles. After banning the mining of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in May 2021, it recently classified this activity as “obsolete” in terms of policies to reduce environmental impact.
However, they recently launched a government platform for non-fungible tokens (NFT), centrally, which gives the impression that the Chinese government is not totally against these technologies, but that citizens can use them freely. and decentralized.
