Author: Xu Duoqi
Abstract: Virtual currencies, characterized by anonymity, decentralization, and cross-border circulation, offer transformative potential as value media in the digital economy. However, in judicial practice, their ambiguous legal nature and divergent regulatory policies across jurisdictions have generated significant challenges in judicial disposition. Representative cases—including the U.S. Ripple litigation, the “Blue Company” Bitcoin cross-border recovery case, and Jingmen’s “first virtual currency case”—demonstrate persistent difficulties such as conflicts in cross-national legal characterization standards, complexities in value assessment, obstacles to cross-border asset recovery, fragmentation of evidentiary chains, and the limitations of existing technical disposal measures. These challenges reveal that the relationship between state regulation and the borderless nature of digital technologies in the digital era remains insufficiently coordinated. There is an urgent need to establish an institutional linkage mechanism between the legal characterization of virtual currencies and their judicial disposition, so as to reconcile the structural tension between “property recognition” and “transaction prohibition.” To this end, it is necessary to strengthen cross-departmental coordination frameworks, develop specialized disposal institutions, upgrade technological tools, and expand channels for international cooperation to form a closed-loop governance mechanism. On the basis of clarifying the legal attributes of virtual currencies, the institutional framework for judicial disposition should be refined, and mutual recognition of cross-border asset recovery rules should be promoted, thereby balancing financial innovation with judicial justice.
Keywords: Virtual Currency; Legal Nature; Judicial Disposition; Institutional Linkage Mechanism
Journal：Journal of Law Application (CSSCI), (11).
Publish date：2025/11/6
