China Pushes “Zero Tolerance” Approach To Cryptocurrency-Related Crime

As reported by the Xinhua News Agency, a statement calling for regulators to take a “zero tolerance” approach to cryptocurrency-related crime was released by Chinese government. Xinhua, an official government press agency whose president sits on the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee, added that officials must act with “iron fist governance,” according to a rough translation.

Regulators have already issued a prohibition on initial coin offerings (ICOs), making it illegal for Chinese startups to raise money using this fundraising model and investors to contribute to foreign ICOs. As an extension of this ban, regulators forced domestic bitcoin trading platforms to “voluntarily” shut down. Some, including BTCC — formerly the world’s longest-running bitcoin exchange — have already shut down, while select exchanges are allowed to continue to operate until the end of October.

However, noting that many Chinese cryptocurrency users will attempt to bypass the regulations by using foreign trading platforms located in Japan and elsewhere, Xinhua says that “regulatory vacuums” remain and deserve attention from the government.

Xinhua goes on to call for targeted, hardline regulatory measures including licensure, record-keeping, strict AML/KYC policies, and transaction limits. These policies would appear to leave the door open to a potential future roll-out of a cryptocurrency exchange licensing program that would allow trading to resume in a heavily-regulated environment.

While China is being apprehensive of cryptocurrency, Russia seems to embrace it as its Ministry of Finance has proposed the inclusion of digital currency to the country’s financial literacy strategy for 2023.

The strategy was jointly developed by the government and the World Bank, TASS reports.

Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov explained that the inclusion of the topic of virtual currency is necessary to bolster the financial literacy of Russians. This move is prompted by the growing interest in cryptocurrencies in the country, even though the status of cryptocurrencies is not legally regulated in Russia as of yet.

“In the strategy to increase the financial literacy of Russians, it is necessary to include the topic of cryptocurrency. The question of investing in instruments such as cryptocurrencies will, of course, be discussed, and we now see more risks than recommendations on investing in such instruments. So, explaining the possible consequences of investing in unregulated instruments will be one of the issues with which we will speak for the current year and until 2023.”