PANews reported on December 7 that the People's Court Daily published an article entitled "Criminal Characterization of Illegal Theft of Virtual Currency", pointing out that stealing virtual currency constitutes theft. It is generally believed that as economic property, it must have value, including utility, scarcity and disposability. Scarcity is reflected in the fact that the total amount of virtual currency is constant and not infinitely supplied. Disposability is reflected in the fact that virtual currency uses asymmetric encryption technology and exists in a "wallet" (i.e., address). After obtaining the address and private key, the virtual currency can be controlled. Utility is reflected in the fact that virtual currency, as a specific data code, must be generated through "mining", and "mining" condenses social abstract labor. In real life, virtual currency can be transferred and traded to obtain calculable economic benefits, and has use value and exchange value. Therefore, virtual currency has property attributes.
The act of stealing virtual currency constitutes the crime of illegally obtaining computer system data. "Data" is defined as "any record of information in electronic or other form". Virtual currency is generated and exists in computer networks. In terms of technical attributes, it is a string of digital combinations that exist in electronic form and has the criminal law attributes of computer information system data. Virtual currency has data properties, and the act of illegally stealing virtual currency constitutes the crime of illegally obtaining computer system data.
After determining that the theft of virtual currency is an imaginary competition of the crime of illegally obtaining computer system data and the crime of theft, the question arises as to how to calculate the value of the virtual currency involved. Since the price of virtual currency changes at any time, in practice, it should be objectively determined based on the principles of fairness, rationality and convenience. Since virtual currency is property, the illegal possession of other people's virtual currency constitutes a property crime, and the amount of loss of the victim is used as the amount involved in the case, which is in line with the basic principle of calculating the amount of property crime. However, due to the supply and demand relationship and artificial speculation of virtual currency, its price will show a large appreciation or depreciation change. Therefore, it is more reasonable to calculate the amount of virtual currency involved as the time when the defendant committed the crime rather than when the victim purchased the virtual currency.
