<div id="readability-page-1"><div><div><h2>Introduction: The risks of cryptocurrency-related cases are concentrated in the &#34;relief phase&#34;</h2><p>When handling cryptocurrency-related cases, you will repeatedly encounter a very typical emotion of the parties involved:</p><p>&#34;I know I've been scammed, the money has indeed been transferred, and I can see it on the blockchain, so why is no one taking action and I can't get it back?&#34;</p><p>The problem is often not at the factual level, but at the procedural level—</p><p>The clearer the facts, the easier it is for the parties involved to mistakenly believe that &#34;relief can be initiated&#34;; however, in cryptocurrency-related cases, whether relief can be initiated depends on three things: the nature of the crime, jurisdiction, and whether the evidence can be put into practice.</p><p> The nature of cryptocurrency disputes has changed in recent years: Early on, it was mostly about &#34;theft and absconding&#34;; now, it's more about seemingly legitimate structures (listing services, U-merchant exchanges, NFT investment platforms), but with more complex asset paths, more dispersed entities, and more frequent cross-border involvement. Therefore, when cases reach the &#34;relief stage,&#34; they often encounter three obstacles: The assets have value, but their nature and transaction relationships are not easily determined quickly: Is it property, contractual subject matter, investment rights, or a &#34;tool&#34; in a suspected criminal chain? Cross-border and multi-entity structures make jurisdiction and evidence collection a real challenge: The blockchain is here, the exchange is there, the server is overseas, and the person has absconded? Civil and criminal matters are mutually constrained: Once deemed &#34;potentially involved in criminal activity,&#34; civil matters can easily be stalled or even transferred to other jurisdictions, and the pace of redress is completely out of the parties' control. The following three typical cases will clarify &#34;why the process is stalled&#34; and &#34;what a lawyer can do.&#34; Real Case Review: Case 1: Cross-border &#34;Listing Service Fee&#34; Scam A company from country H planned to list its token on an exchange in country S and contacted a Chinese salesperson at the exchange. They agreed to pay 800,000 USDT as a listing service fee. After payment, the salesperson disappeared, and the exchange claimed the salesperson had resigned, and the service fee had not been received. Key Obstacles in Case Progression The case involves significant cross-border elements, making it difficult to directly initiate civil remedies; regarding procedural choice, the principle of criminal priority requires resolving the issue of whether to file a case first. The cross-border nature of crypto assets presents practical difficulties for evidence collection and jurisdiction, such as wallet transaction records being distributed across different blockchains and exchange servers located overseas. There is disagreement regarding the nature of the conduct: whether it constitutes criminal fraud or civil breach of contract directly determines which procedure the case proceeds to and whether remedies can be initiated. What can lawyers do? The first step isn't to rush into writing about &#34;how you were scammed,&#34; but rather to outline &#34;how the money went&#34;: the transfer chain, wallet address, timeline, the other party's identity documents, communication records, and exchange feedback. Prepare two sets of statements simultaneously: For criminal cases: emphasize the leverage of territorial/personal jurisdiction and stress the key fact of &#34;intent to illegally possess&#34; (inducement, fabricated identity/authority, service promises, refusal to fulfill obligations, disappearance, etc.). For civil cases: compress the dispute into &#34;service fee payment—service not fulfilled—unfounded possession by the other party,&#34; providing a foundation for subsequent negotiations/asset preservation. Don't treat &#34;exchange replies&#34; as conclusions, but as entry points for evidence: it's common for exchanges to deny responsibility, but lawyers should turn them into clues about &#34;the other party's internal management, authority, and business relationships.&#34; Case 2: USDT Exchange Scam An investor met an &#34;investment advisor&#34; online and was recommended to exchange USDT through a U-merchant. The investor transferred over three million yuan to multiple accounts, but the funds never arrived. The U-merchant was subsequently arrested, but since it only provided exchange services and had no direct connection to the upstream fraud ring, the police ultimately terminated the investigation. Key Obstacles in Case Progress First, conduct a &#34;traceability assessment,&#34; then discuss the path forward. This assessment is harsh, but necessary: ​​Which accounts can still be frozen? Which entities can be located? What evidence can be used to close the loop? </p><p>Break down the &#34;flow of funds&#34; into two parallel tracks:</p><ul><li>Bank side: Transfer chain, identity of receiving account, destination of funds (whether concentrated, whether short-term dispersed).</li><li>On-chain side: Whether there are nodes related to aggregation, collection, cross-chain, and exchange entry related to known wallets.</li></ul><p>The core variable in these types of cases is often not &#34;whether a lawsuit can be filed/initiated,&#34; but &#34;whether asset control can be achieved at key nodes.&#34; We will explain the feasibility and risks of each node to clients simultaneously during the process, ensuring that decisions are based on feasibility.</p><p> Case 3: NFT Investment Scam A client purchased a series of high-value NFTs through an online platform, which claimed that these NFTs could generate future art dividends and rare digital rights. After the client paid approximately 5 million RMB, the platform suddenly shut down, the website became inaccessible, and the person in charge disappeared. Subsequent investigations revealed that the NFT smart contract code contained a backdoor, allowing assets to be transferred at will. Key Obstacles in Case Progress As a derivative right of digital assets, NFTs possess both investment and trading attributes, and their legal characterization remains highly uncertain under existing rules. The platform's entity and smart contracts are highly anonymous, and their cross-border deployment presents real obstacles to asset tracking, entity identification, and jurisdiction. Even with technical tracking through contract logs, on-chain records, or IP information, cross-chain assets often involve multiple jurisdictions, making actual recovery extremely difficult. Expanding the practical perspective: Translating the technical facts into legal terms: a contract backdoor means control is not in the customer's hands; &#34;free transfer&#34; corresponds to the crucial factual basis of &#34;illegal possession intent.&#34; Don't just focus on on-chain evidence: bank statements, recharge records, platform promotional promises, profit-sharing mechanisms, chat logs, contract terms, and backend screenshots are often more persuasive to law enforcement than &#34;on-chain analysis reports.&#34; It's also crucial to explain the probability of recovery beforehand: a contract backdoor + cross-chain + anonymity structure essentially maximizes the difficulty of asset recovery; even criminal charges may not &#34;save&#34; the assets, but at least control of key nodes can be secured. The Core Reasons for Obstruction of Civil Remedies Looking back at the three cases mentioned above, it can be seen that although the types of cases are different, they all encountered highly similar institutional obstacles in the civil path after entering the remedy stage. 1. The Principle of Criminal Priority Acts involving criminal offenses must first be investigated and prosecuted; civil litigation usually has to wait for the completion of criminal proceedings. Once a criminal judgment addresses property rights, a subsequent civil lawsuit will trigger the principle of &#34;res judicata.&#34; If a civil case is transferred to the public security bureau and the court determines that the conduct constitutes a crime, the civil path is forcibly interrupted. 2. Difficulty in Cross-Border Accountability</p><ul><li>The funds and suspects involved in the case are distributed across multiple countries, making cross-border evidence collection, investigation, and enforcement highly restricted.</li><li>Anonymity and programmability allow assets to be split and transferred in a short period of time, further weakening the possibility of recovery.</li></ul><p>3. Complex Asset Identification and Behavior Characterization</p><ul><li>Crypto assets can be payment tools or carry investment or derivative rights; differences in characterization directly affect the path to relief.</li><li>Even if civil proceedings are initiated, courts often find it difficult to support requests for restitution due to asset dispersion, insufficient evidence, or unclear application of law.</li><li></li></ul><p>Practical Implications</p><p>Limited civil remedies are not only a procedural issue, but also a systemic constraint.</p><p>In currency-related cases, the criminal route remains the most realistic and feasible remedy. The core role of lawyers is to help clients rationally plan their path and avoid exhausting their only remedy in procedural choices.</p><h2>Implications for lawyers: Don't just &#34;pile up materials,&#34; focus on &#34;path control.&#34;</h2><p>Based on the issues exposed at different stages of the three cases mentioned above, the core capabilities of lawyers in currency-related cases can be summarized into three levels: front-end risk identification, evidence and structural control during the process, and a clear understanding of the boundaries of the system.</p><p>(I) Front-end: Identifying risks in advance, rather than remediating afterward. Legality assessment of transactions: Analyze whether they involve risks of illegal fundraising, fraud, or illegal business operations, focusing on whether the tokens have security characteristics. Asset attribute differentiation: Payment or functional tokens are more likely to be included in the &#34;tradable property&#34; framework; tokens with guaranteed returns are more likely to trigger criminal intervention. Cross-border structure prediction: Whether it involves overseas entities, exchanges, or wallet addresses directly determines the difficulty of subsequent accountability. (II) Process: Constructing a Judicially Acceptable Chain of Evidence Standardization of Contracts and Transaction Records: Clearly define the purpose of transactions and rights and obligations; systematically store on-chain transaction records and operation logs. Retention of Cross-Border Communication Evidence: Bank statements, platform emails, chat logs, etc.; attention should be paid to the time of formation and continuity. (III) Understanding Institutional Boundaries: Path Selection Itself is a Strategy Most cryptocurrency-related cases cannot bypass criminal procedures; the feasibility of criminal proceedings should be assessed first. Civil litigation is more of a supplementary tool for negotiation and fund recovery than a primary reliance. Lawyers need to clearly manage client expectations and avoid misinterpreting &#34;procedure existence&#34; as &#34;inevitable outcome.&#34; (IV) Advanced Practice: Towards &#34;Critical Judgments&#34; Many cases may still get stuck even if you prepare the materials to the best of your ability. The reason is usually not the level of effort, but several &#34;critical judgments&#34;: How exactly is the nature of the behavior understood (fraud vs. dispute; organizer vs. intermediary; beneficiary vs. tool); Can the risk structure be identified in advance (profit promises, collection nodes, transaction entry points, evidence of control); Have the window of opportunity been seized (freezing nodes, investigation nodes, entity locking nodes)? These judgments aren't written in the legal statutes, but they determine the course of a case. From &#34;What can be done&#34; to &#34;When can it be done&#34;: Turning key judgments into reusable methods. Returning to the three cases mentioned earlier, a common thread emerges: Many cryptocurrency cases aren't &#34;without rules,&#34; but rather there are gaps between the rules—characterization, jurisdiction, evidence, asset control—each of these can potentially halt the case's progress. More realistically, even if the lawyer prepares the materials perfectly, the case may still stall at a certain point—not due to a lack of ability, but because it encounters several types of &#34;critical judgments&#34;: Is this fraud or a transaction dispute? Can the responsible party be identified? Is the asset control window still open? These judgments are difficult to explain with a single sentence of experience, nor can they be directly derived from a few legal provisions. It's more like a &#34;craft&#34; of case handling: the same facts can be presented in different ways – some can present them as grounds for prosecution, while others can only describe them as &#34;suspected disputes.&#34; The difference often lies in how the evidence is organized, how the path is ordered, and how the key points are accurately identified. Therefore, the closed-door seminar/practical training we arranged in Zhengzhou this year wasn't about &#34;repeating the concepts,&#34; but rather about breaking down these judgments and transforming them into working methods that lawyers can directly use: Focusing on the most easily misjudged and outcome-influencing points: when to prioritize criminal proceedings, when to pursue asset preservation, when to use civil litigation as a supplementary tool, and when to adjust strategies. Systematically dissecting the criminal entry points, jurisdictional leverage, asset control nodes, and the organization of the evidence loop; Clearly explaining the basic logic of the industry and transaction system, and also creating a reusable framework for the high-risk structures in cryptocurrency cases, the application of charges and defense approaches, and the methodologies for key case progression points. The goal is simple—to get you back into practice, able to handle consultations, and more reliably handle cryptocurrency criminal cases.</p></div></div></div>

<p>The article discusses the challenges faced in cryptocurrency-related cases during the "relief phase." It highlights that the procedural complexities often hinder the recovery of funds, despite clear evidence of scams. Key obstacles include the nature of the crime, jurisdiction issues, and difficulties in evidence collection, especially in cross-border scenarios. Two case studies illustrate these challenges: a cross-border listing service fee scam and a USDT exchange scam, both demonstrating the need for strategic legal approaches to navigate the complexities of cryptocurrency disputes.</p>

Why do currency-related cases get stuck at the "civil remedy stage"?