"Virtual currency is not classified as an illegal item. Therefore, under the current legal policy framework, the virtual currency held by relevant entities in our country is still legal property and protected by law," the People’s Court of China wrote in a report titled "Identification of the Property Attributes of Virtual Currency and Disposal of Property Involved in the Case," according to a local news site
ODaily.
"At some point the strategic embrace of crypto technology by the PRC [People's Republic of China] will catch the attention of U.S. policymakers," Faryar Shirzad, chief policy officer at bitcoin and crypto exchange Coinbase,
posted to X (Twitter). "Chinese courts don’t create a legal framework around anything without the blessing of central authorities."
The court report follows bitcoin and crypto companies in Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China,
being issued licenses to offer crypto trading to the public under a new regulatory regime. Last month, the first licenses were awarded crypto exchanges HashKey and OSL.