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Recently, the China Internet Finance Association, the China Banking Association and the China Payment and Clearing Association jointly issued an announcement requiring member institutions not to conduct virtual currency transactions and other related financial businesses. The main reason why the three associations jointly announced the "ban" information is that most virtual currencies based on blockchain lack real value anchors, and their prices are prone to skyrocketing and plummeting. In recent years, the accompanying illegal and criminal activities such as pyramid schemes and fraud have also risen rapidly. Although investment in the field of virtual currency has brought huge wealth effects to a very small number of people, it is suspected of deviating from existing laws and policies, and for many ordinary investors, it is even more hidden. Huge risks.
Specifically, the exchange of legal tender and virtual currency, exchange between virtual currencies, and the provision of information intermediary and pricing services for virtual currency transactions are contrary to the policies such as the Notice on Preventing Risks of Token Issuance and Financing issued by the People's Bank of China and seven other ministries in 2017. In addition, in recent years, some institutions have launched businesses including direct issuance of virtual tokens, futures, leveraged contracts or securitized token trading. In particular, some overseas commercial institutions have issued indiscriminate misleading advertisements to domestic investors, inducing ordinary investors to participate in high-risk high-multiple contract transactions. In extreme cases, some investors have lost their fortunes, which has an extremely bad impact.
According to existing laws and policies, these businesses have not been reviewed and approved by financial regulatory authorities and may be involved in illegal fundraising, illegal issuance of securities, illegal sale of tokens and tickets, and other criminal activities. Especially since the second half of 2020, some virtual currency trading speculation activities have been surging internationally, driving some ordinary investors in China who completely lack the ability to identify and bear risks to rush into the market, posing great risks to the property safety of investors and the normal order of the economy and finance. This is an important background for the three major associations to announce the "ban" information.
The announcement emphasized that the price of virtual currency can be easily manipulated by individuals or institutions. According to the author's research and observation, this reveals the characteristics of the virtual currency market speculation. In reality, especially in the past six months, famous people in the overseas high-tech industry have been constantly "calling orders" (publishing their own trading orders) on the Internet, which directly promoted the price of a certain virtual currency to soar in a short period of time. At the same time, this person also issued critical comments on another virtual currency, which directly led to the price of the virtual currency "smashing" in a short period of time. In addition, related speculative trading activities have multiple risks such as business failure and speculation. For ordinary people who lack rich investment experience in high-risk fields, it is easy to suffer heavy losses if they rashly intervene in virtual currency speculation.
In addition, judging from the judicial practice in recent years in my country, some local courts have refused to accept contract disputes related to virtual currency transactions. Although the court's move is still debatable in terms of legal theory, the result is that many parties have to bear the relevant losses themselves. Therefore, following the policy direction of the financial regulatory authorities, the three major associations have issued risk warnings in a timely manner to remind investors to enhance risk awareness, establish correct investment concepts, guard against damage to personal property and rights, and use personal bank accounts properly, which is of great significance.
However, the three major associations are essentially self-regulatory organizations in the financial sector. The notices they issue are limited to member units within the association. Once non-member units are involved, it is not easy to require them to stop providing related services. Furthermore, the association is not a regulatory department and has no law enforcement authority. It lacks effective deterrence against member units that violate service agreements. In addition, virtual currency speculation is naturally global and quasi-anonymous, which poses a challenge to the strict regulatory policies of a single country.
Therefore, in order to steadily promote supervision in this field and prevent the risks brought by excessive speculation in virtual currencies, it is necessary to follow the spirit of the rule of law and co-governance by multiple parties to achieve the expected results. First of all, we should continue to promote "good laws and good governance" in the field of virtual currency supervision. The so-called "good laws" means that the laws and policies in this field should help promote technological innovation in the blockchain field, and be consistent with the policy spirit of the Party Central Committee in recent years to encourage the research and development of core blockchain technologies. For the risks of virtual currency speculation derived from blockchain research, it is recommended to promote the "regulatory sandbox" (define a scope, take inclusive and prudent regulatory measures for enterprises in the "box", and prevent the spread of problems outside the "box"), encourage the research and development of blockchain technology in a new regulatory way, and put related risks within a controllable and preventable range.
Secondly, our Civil Code stipulates that "Internet virtual property is protected by law." Based on this, it is recommended that relevant legislative bodies promptly clarify the legal nature of virtual property, provide effective institutional supply and legal guidance for courts to hear relevant cases, and safeguard the legitimate property rights and interests of the parties.
Thirdly, financial regulatory authorities should strictly enforce the law against obvious illegal and irregular behaviors of some institutions, such as misleading advertisements, and continue to promote risk warnings and risk prevention publicity for virtual currency speculation with industry associations.
Finally, it is recommended that China's financial regulatory authorities promote international collaboration to prevent the risk of overseas virtual currency speculation from spreading to the domestic market. |
