The court’s holding
Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court used its WeChat account on October 26 to describe a 2024 criminal case involving company virtual currency. The court said an employee moved more than 400,000 tokens, and it treated the assets as property under criminal law because they can deliver real economic benefit. The appraisal put the amount at over 2.58 million yuan. That figure pushed the case past the statutory line for an especially large sum. The disclosure does not name the token. That omission matters. A lawyer, Liu Yang of DeHeng, says the ratio of units to yuan suggests a stablecoin, though he has not seen the judgment.
The appraisal dispute
Liu does not argue that virtual assets lack property status. He argues that the price was fixed without a lawful path. His main reference is Notice No. 42, issued in February by the People’s Bank of China and seven other agencies. In his reading, the notice bars mainland pricing and information services for virtual currency trades, and it also blocks offshore platforms from serving mainland users in any form. So using a Hong Kong exchange’s order book as a benchmark would let a court rely, in practice, on a venue mainland authorities do not recognize. He also says market quotes are ordinary financial data, not a specialized forensic question. In his view, commissioning an appraiser shifts the court’s pricing duty to a third party. The appraisal institution and its exact method remain unknown.
Why the gap matters
The court’s own post confirms the property holding and the use of an appraisal as a reference. A full public judgment with the pricing details has not appeared. That missing document is perhaps the real problem. Cases with lawful domestic markets can use ordinary evidence to set value. Virtual assets on the mainland cannot, because the pricing middlemen are outlawed. Until standards are unified, outcomes may split: liquidation-value methods in first-tier courts, appraisals elsewhere, and appellate risk wherever an offshore quote sets a crime amount. For companies, the lesson is narrow but practical. Track token movements and keep records. The legal status question is mostly settled. The price question is not.
