What legal risks should the virtual currency payment community pay attention to?

Source: Mankiw Blockchain Law

Introduction:

Due to relevant domestic laws, regulations and policies, if you use domestic social media platforms (Such as Zhihu, Weibo, Douyin, etc.) If you publish opinions and opinions related to blockchain/virtual currency, it is easy to be judged as violating regulations, have your posts deleted, or even have your account banned. Therefore, many coins Most of the popular Internet Vs and KOLs are active on Twitter (Twitter/X).

If KOL’s views are recognized by more and more people and there are more and more fans, then with more traffic, there will be more possibilities for monetization. In addition to publishing advertisements, bringing goods, and attending related events, creating paid communities for private domain operations is also one of the common monetization models for KOLs.

For currency community operators/KOLs, what are the legal risks of operating a paid-for-knowledge community? In this article, Lawyer Shao analyzes this issue based on relevant policies and regulations in my country and provides relevant suggestions.

01 In terms of content dissemination, operators/KOLs should prevent "trouble from coming out of mouth"

The notice of five ministries and commissions in 2013 mentioned the prevention of possible money laundering risks caused by Bitcoin. The 2017 94 Announcement mentioned that the token issuance and financing activities of virtual currencies are prohibited. The 2018 "On Preventing the Use of "Virtual Currency"" "Risk Warning of Illegal Fund-raising in the Name of Blockchain" mentioned that virtual currency speculation is prohibited, and the 2021 924 Notice mentioned that virtual currency-related business activities are illegal financial activities. In 2022, the China Internet Finance Association and others issued the "Initiative on Preventing NFT-Related Financial Risks"...

Therefore, in view of the fact that my country's relevant policies generally have a negative impact on virtual currencies and related investment, speculation and other financial businesses With a negative attitude, if community operators establish a "Knowledge Planet" community and output opinions, they need to pay attention: when providing information or one-on-one consultation to users, do not provide specific investment and financial management suggestions to the group, and do not guide Users go to specific exchanges to recharge, play contracts, leverage transactions, etc.

If users make money, they will praise KOL as a great god; if users lose money, they will unite to protect their rights and go to the police station to report being defrauded. . In short, users in the currency circle are very good at sizing up the situation and taking up legal weapons to protect themselves.

02 Can the membership fee be charged in USDT or platform currency?

< p>USDT, as a stable currency anchored to the price of the US dollar, has a stable price and has become a common payment method in the eyes of people in the currency circle. Everyone seems to have forgotten that Bitcoin was already mentioned in the notice of the five ministries and commissions in 2013. It should be regarded as a specific virtual commodity and does not have the same legal status as currency. It cannot and should not be used as currency in the market. This policy also applies to other virtual currencies such as USDT.

If the membership fee is a virtual currency such as USDT or a platform currency issued by an exchange, the virtual currency is already used as a payment method like legal currency. In this case, if you receive coins from upstream black and gray sources such as black U, your exchange account will be frozen at least, and at worst, you may be involved in criminal charges such as trusting and concealment.

03 Is it okay to bring community members to speculate in coins?

If so Forget it if you speculate in coins yourself and make a loss by investing in some altcoins. If the project side runs away, you will bear the risk as a "victim". But if you bring a group of friends to speculate in coins, it is still not recommended. After all, whether the coins issued by the project party will rise or fall in the future, and whether the project party itself is reliable, these are all information asymmetries.

As mentioned in the 2021 924 Notice, "There are legal risks involved in participating in virtual currency investment and trading activities. Any legal person, unincorporated organization or natural person who invests in virtual currencies and related derivatives that violates public order and good customs will be subject to relevant civil If the legal act is invalid, the resulting losses shall be borne by the parties themselves; those suspected of disrupting financial order and endangering financial security shall be investigated and dealt with by relevant departments in accordance with the law."

Although the notice does not list the specific legal responsibilities involved in participating in virtual currency transactions, depending on the specific situation, there is always a criminal offense that can be applied. After all, there is no shortage of bailout clauses in our country’s criminal law.

04 What should you pay attention to when helping the project party to attract new people?

Various projects in the currency circle are emerging one after another. Project parties and KOLs can cooperate with each other and share benefits. The project side can accumulate more potential users through KOL's deep fan base and strong appeal. KOL can also gain cooperation benefits through publicity and promotion for the project side.

When a project initially accumulates users, it often sets up various new acquisition reward mechanisms. The common new acquisition model is generally A. Users can generate their own exclusive QR code or link in the product poster, and Share the QR code or link, and if user B registers, then A can receive relevant rewards from the platform.

According to the provisions of our country’s laws, pyramid schemes refer to organizers or operators who develop people by calculating and paying remuneration or requiring the people to be developed based on the number of people or sales performance they directly or indirectly develop. Personnel seek illegal benefits by paying certain fees as a condition to obtain membership qualifications, disrupt economic order, and affect social stability. If there are more than 30 people involved in MLM activities within an organization and the level is above level three, the organizers and leaders should be held criminally responsible.

The author has encountered a crime case of organizing and leading pyramid schemes. A certain KOL acted as the platform for the project side, participated in several activities and expressed some of his own opinions. Later, the project side was involved in the case, and finally the KOL and the project Fang was sentenced together with organizing and leading pyramid schemes.

05 Is it okay for community operations and KOL to issue NFT?

Since Promoting other people's projects involves certain legal risks due to information asymmetry and other complex reasons. Is it okay to issue your own NFT within the community? Lawyer Shao wrote in his article "Is it legal for Internet celebrity KOLs to issue coins to allow fans to share the dividends?" "It has also been mentioned that my country's relevant policies do not allow any organization or individual to issue tokens. Digital collections, as localized products of NFT, also mainly emphasize their collection value as digital artworks and guard against their financial attributes.

If some KOLs guide users’ psychology through hype, deception, price manipulation, etc., so that a large number of users purchase their NFTs, but they are actually unable to provide users with sustained and stable high-quality services. After raising the price, it will Selling NFT for high profits resulted in a large loss of user funds. If a user subsequently reports being defrauded, the KOL’s criminal liability will be unavoidable.

06 When operating a community on foreign chat software such as Twitter, what are the risks that need to be paid attention to?

According to Article 2, paragraph 1, of the "Internet Group Information Service Management Regulations", "the provision and use of Internet group information services within the territory of the People's Republic of China shall comply with these regulations."

So, as long as you are in China, no matter what kind of software you use to operate the community, you need to comply with relevant domestic laws and policies. Moreover, from the perspective of criminal law, as long as a Chinese person commits a crime, criminal act or result occurs within the territory of our country, our country’s judicial organs have jurisdiction.

In addition, according to the "Interim Provisions of the People's Republic of China on the Management of International Networking of Computer Information Networks", once an individual's "censorship" behavior is investigated and punished, the public security agency may be ordered to stop networking, given a warning, fined, and illegally confiscated Legal risks such as income and other administrative penalties.

07 Written at the end

I hope this article will be of benefit to currency community operators /KOL can provide some direction ideas in the process of operating the community. A more practical and practical solution needs to be analyzed based on the content of social services and specific scenarios.