Admitting guilt and accepting a lighter sentence clash with strict regulation of virtual currencies, and the battlefield for criminal defense is being redefined.

Author: Liu Yang, Crypto Circle Criminal Defense

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With the official implementation of the newly refined 2026 leniency-for-plea-and-conviction regulations, and in combination with the central bank’s eight departments’ “Notice on Further Preventing and Disposing of Risks Related to Virtual Currencies and Other” (Yinfa [2026] No. 42), which tightens the regulatory enforcement approach toward illegal financial activity involving virtual currencies across the board, this is a change that the author has truly felt in criminal defense practice. Criminal cases involving virtual currencies have entered a brand-new judicial stage characterized by stricter qualification, hierarchical leniency, and the pre-emptive placement of asset recovery in the process. The new regulations revise five major dimensions: (1) review of the voluntariness of guilty pleas, (2) tiered classification of the scope of leniency, (3) linking the recovery of proceeds to plea acceptance, (4) differentiated sentencing for principal offenders and accomplices, and (5) a remorse-and-retreat penalty mechanism.