The "Announcement" jointly issued by seven ministries and commissions clearly pointed out that the tokens or "virtual currency" used in token issuance financing are not issued by the monetary authorities, have no monetary attributes such as legal compensation and coercion, have no legal status equivalent to currency, and cannot and should not be circulated in the market as currency.
At the same time, the announcement also pointed out that the illegal sale and circulation of so-called "virtual currency" such as Bitcoin and Ethereum to investors is essentially an unauthorized illegal public financing act, which is suspected of illegal sale of token certificates, illegal issuance of securities and illegal fund-raising, financial fraud, pyramid schemes and other illegal and criminal activities.
Chen Jiahe, chief strategist of Cinda Securities, said that the guarantee of real money or things with monetary attributes comes from two aspects: one is the guarantee and endorsement of strong state power, and the other is the universal use and irreplaceability of the people. So virtual currency is obviously not real currency.
Expanding network: beware of speculative risk of virtual currency
After the regulatory authorities made it clear, although btc China, Huobi.com and other "virtual currency" operators have taken restrictive measures on the trading platform, the speculative risk of "virtual currency" is still worthy of high vigilance.
In this regard, the China Internet Finance Association also stated in the "Tips on Preventing the Risks of the so-called" virtual currency "such as Bitcoin" that the so-called "virtual currency" such as Bitcoin lacks a clear value base and is increasingly becoming a tool for money laundering, drug trafficking, smuggling, illegal fund-raising and other illegal and criminal activities.
Investors participate in speculation through the "virtual currency" trading platform, facing the risk of large price fluctuations, security risks, platform technology risks and so on. It needs to be borne by investors themselves.
In an interview with this reporter, Yu Jin, director of the Department of Economics, School of Economics, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, pointed out that supervision is very important to finance. Compared with traditional financial products and activities, "virtual currency" has no objective value reference at present.
Financial activities based on "virtual currency" have been out of the supervision system for a long time, and related financial activities are easy to fall into problems such as "expected pricing" and "emotional pricing".
In this context, "virtual currency" may not only hide gray transactions or even black transactions, but also cause various risks, "crowding out" physical financial innovation, which is not conducive to the sustained and healthy development of Internet finance.
References:
People's Daily Online: The hype of "virtual currency" is a real pit (hot focus).