Introduction: The Risks of Cryptocurrency Cases Are Concentrated in the "Relief Stage"

When dealing with cryptocurrency cases, you will repeatedly encounter a very typical emotional response from the parties involved:

"I know I've been scammed, the money has indeed been transferred, and I can see it on the blockchain. Why is no one taking care of it, and why can't I get it back?"

The problem often lies not in the facts but in the procedural aspects—

The clearer the facts, the more likely the parties are to mistakenly believe that "relief can be initiated"; however, in cryptocurrency cases, whether relief can be initiated depends on three things: qualification, jurisdiction, and whether evidence can be established.

In recent years, the forms of cryptocurrency disputes have also changed:

In the early days, they were more about "theft and running away"; now they often involve structures that appear quite legitimate (listing services, U-trader exchanges, NFT investment platforms), but the asset paths are more complex, the subjects are more dispersed, and cross-border issues are more common. Thus, when cases progress to the "relief stage," they often encounter three walls:

• Assets are valuable, but their nature and trading relationships are not easy to quickly qualify: Are they considered property, contract objects, investment rights, or tools involved in criminal chains?;
• Cross-border and multi-subject structures make jurisdiction and evidence collection real challenges: the blockchain is here, the exchange is there, the server is overseas, and the person has run away?;
• Civil and criminal matters constrain each other: Once deemed "potentially criminal," civil matters can easily be stalled or even transferred, and the pace of relief is completely out of the parties' control.

Below, I will clarify "why it gets stuck" and "what lawyers can do" using three typical cases.

Real Case Review

Case 1: Cross-Border "Listing Service Fee" Scam

A company from Country H planned to list a token on an exchange in Country S and connected with a Chinese salesperson from the exchange. Both parties agreed to pay 800,000 USDT as a listing service fee.

After the payment was completed, the salesperson went missing, and the exchange stated that he had resigned, and the service fee had not been received.

Key Obstacles in Case Progression

• The case involves obvious cross-border factors, making civil relief difficult to initiate directly; the principle of prioritizing criminal matters requires first resolving whether a case can be filed.
• The cross-border nature of cryptocurrency assets complicates evidence collection and judicial jurisdiction, for example, wallet transaction records are distributed across different blockchains, and the exchange's server is located overseas.
• There are differences in the qualification of the nature of the behavior: whether it constitutes criminal fraud or civil contract breach directly determines which procedure the case enters and whether relief can be initiated.

What Can Lawyers Do?

Step one: Don't rush to write the "scam experience," first map out "how the money moved": transfer routes, wallet addresses, timelines, identity materials of the other party, communication records, and feedback from the exchange.

Simultaneously prepare two sets of talking points:

For criminal: Highlight local/person jurisdiction leverage, emphasize the key facts of "with the intent of illegal possession" (inducement, fictitious identity/authority, service commitments, refusal to perform, going missing, etc.).

For civil: Compress the dispute into "service fee payment—service not performed—no basis for the other party's possession," to serve as a foundation for subsequent negotiations/property preservation.

Don't treat "exchange responses" as conclusions; treat them as evidence entry points: It's common for exchanges to deny responsibility, but lawyers should turn it into a source of clues about "the other party's internal management, authority, and business relationships."

Case 2: USDT Exchange Scam

An investor met an "investment advisor" online and was recommended to exchange USDT through a U-trader. He transferred over 3 million yuan to multiple accounts, but the funds never arrived. The U-trader was later arrested, but they only provided exchange services and had no direct connection to the upstream scam group, leading the police to ultimately terminate the investigation.

Key Obstacles in Case Progression

First, conduct a "recoverability assessment" before discussing paths. This assessment is harsh but necessary: which accounts can still be frozen? Which subjects can be located? Which evidence can close the loop?

Break down the "fund flow" into two lines running simultaneously:

• Bank side: transfer chain, identity of the receiving account, fund destination (whether concentrated or temporarily dispersed).
• On-chain side: whether there are aggregations, collections, cross-chain movements, or entry points into exchanges related to known wallets.

The core variable in such cases often lies not in "whether a lawsuit can be filed," but in "whether asset control can be achieved at key nodes." We will explain the feasibility and risks of each node to the client during the process, allowing decisions to be based on executable foundations.

Case 3: NFT Investment Scam

A client purchased a series of high-value NFTs through an online platform, which claimed that the related NFTs could yield future art dividends and scarce digital rights. After the client paid approximately 5 million yuan, the platform suddenly shut down, the website became inaccessible, and the person in charge went missing. Subsequent investigations revealed that the NFT smart contract code contained backdoors, allowing assets to be transferred at will.

Key Obstacles in Case Progression

• NFTs, as digital assets with derivative rights, possess both investment and trading attributes, and their legal qualification remains highly uncertain under existing rules.
• The platform's subjects and smart contracts are highly anonymized, compounded by cross-border deployment, leading to real obstacles in asset tracking, subject identification, and judicial jurisdiction.
• Even if technical tracking can be done through contract logs, on-chain records, or IP information, cross-chain assets often involve multiple judicial jurisdictions, making actual recovery extremely difficult.

Expanding Practical Perspectives

Translate technical facts into language that the judiciary can understand: A contract backdoor means control is not in the client's hands; "can be transferred at will" corresponds to a key factual pivot of "intent of illegal possession."

Don't focus only on on-chain evidence: Bank statements, recharge records, platform promotional commitments, dividend mechanisms, chat records, contract terms, and backend screenshots often resonate more with the authorities than "on-chain analysis reports."

Also, clarify the probability of recovery in advance: Contract backdoor + cross-chain + anonymous structure essentially maximizes the difficulty of asset recovery; criminal proceedings may not necessarily "bring it back," but at least can strive to control key nodes.

Core Reasons for Obstacles in Civil Relief

Looking back at the three cases mentioned above, it can be seen that although the types of cases differ, they all encounter highly similar institutional obstacles in the civil path once they enter the relief stage.

1. Criminal Priority Principle

• Behaviors involving criminal offenses must first be investigated, and civil litigation usually has to wait for the criminal procedure to be completed.
• Once a criminal judgment deals with property rights, civil re-litigation will trigger "res judicata."
• If a civil case is to be transferred to the police, the court determines that the behavior is suspected of a crime, and the civil path is forcibly interrupted.

2. Difficulty in Cross-Border Accountability

• The funds involved and suspects are distributed across multiple countries, making cross-border evidence collection, investigation, and enforcement highly restricted.
• Anonymity and programmability allow assets to be split and transferred in a short time, further weakening the possibility of recovery.

3. Complexity in Asset Identification and Behavior Qualification

• Cryptocurrency assets can be payment tools or carry investment or derivative rights, and differences in qualification directly affect the relief path.
• Even if entering civil procedures, due to asset dispersion, insufficient evidence, or unclear legal applicability, courts often find it difficult to support return requests.

Practical Insights

Civil relief limitations are not just procedural issues but also institutional constraints.

In cryptocurrency cases, the criminal path remains the most realistic and feasible means of relief, and the core role of lawyers is to help parties reasonably plan their paths and avoid consuming the only relief space in procedural choices.

Insights for Lawyers: Don't Just Accumulate Materials, Control the Path

Combining the issues exposed at different stages in the three cases mentioned above, the core capabilities of lawyers in cryptocurrency cases can be summarized into three levels: front-end risk identification, evidence and structure control during the process, and a clear understanding of institutional boundaries.

(1) Front-End: Identify Risks in Advance, Not After the Fact

• Judgment of Transaction Legality: Analyze whether it touches on illegal fundraising, fraud, or illegal business risks, with a focus on whether the token has securities-like characteristics.
• Distinction of Asset Attributes: Payment-type or functional tokens are more easily included in the "circulating property" framework; tokens with profit promises are more likely to trigger criminal involvement.
• Cross-Border Structure Prediction: Whether it involves foreign subjects, exchanges, or wallet addresses directly determines the difficulty of subsequent accountability.

(2) Process: Build an Evidence Chain Acceptable to the Judiciary

• Standardize Contracts and Transaction Records: Clarify transaction purposes and rights and obligations, systematically save on-chain flows and operation records.
• Preserve Cross-Border Communication Evidence: Bank statements, platform emails, chat records, etc., need to pay attention to formation time and continuity.

(3) Understanding Institutional Boundaries: Path Selection Itself is Strategy

• Most cryptocurrency cases cannot bypass criminal procedures and should prioritize assessing the feasibility of criminal paths.
• Civil litigation serves more as a tool for negotiation and fund recovery rather than a primary reliance.
• Lawyers need to clearly manage client expectations, avoiding the misunderstanding that "the existence of procedures" equates to "inevitable results."

(4) Advanced Practice: Moving Towards "Critical Judgments"

Many cases may still get stuck even if you prepare the materials to perfection. The reason usually lies not in the level of effort but in several "critical judgments":

• How is the nature of the behavior understood (fraud vs. dispute; organizer vs. intermediary; beneficiary vs. tool person);
• Can the risk structure be identified in advance (profit promises, aggregation nodes, exchange entry, evidence of control);
• Was the window period captured (freezing nodes, cooperation nodes, subject locking nodes).

These judgments are not written in legal texts but determine the direction of the case.

From "What Can Be Done" to "When Can It Be Achieved": Turning Key Judgments into Reusable Methods

Returning to the three cases mentioned earlier, a commonality can be found: many cryptocurrency cases do not lack "rules," but rather there are gaps between the rules—qualification, jurisdiction, evidence, and asset control nodes, each of which can halt case progression.

A more realistic point is:

Even if lawyers prepare the materials thoroughly, the case may still get stuck at a certain node—not due to capability issues, but because of encountering several types of "critical judgments":

• Is this fraud or a trading dispute?
• Can the responsible party be locked down?
• Is the asset control window still open?

These judgments are difficult to clarify with "one-liner experience" and hard to derive directly from a few legal provisions. They resemble a kind of case-handling "craft": the same facts can be structured into a case that can be filed by some, while others can only frame it as a "suspected dispute." The difference often lies in how evidence is organized, how paths are sorted, and how nodes are accurately navigated.

Therefore, the closed-door seminar/practical training we arranged in Zhengzhou this year aims not to "repeat the concepts," but to break down these judgments into working methods that lawyers can directly apply:

• Focus on the nodes that are most easily misjudged and most affect the outcome: when to prioritize criminal matters, when to seek preservation, when to use civil as an auxiliary tool, and when to adjust strategies.
• Systematically deconstruct the organization of criminal entry points, jurisdictional levers, asset control nodes, and evidence closure.

This will clarify the basic logic of the industry and trading system while also creating a reusable framework for the high-risk structures, applicable charges and defense angles, and key node methodologies in cryptocurrency cases. The goal is simple—allowing you to return to practice, capable of handling consultations and more steadily managing cryptocurrency criminal cases.

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