Chinese prosecutors call for strengthening cryptocurrency money-laundering investigations, with mixers and privacy coins as key focus targets

Deep Tide TechFlow message. On July 13, according to a report by The Block, a weekend article published on the website of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate of China said that prosecutors are calling for more proactive, more targeted law enforcement measures against money-laundering activities involving cryptocurrencies.

The article points out that the decentralization, anonymity, and cross-border circulation characteristics of virtual currencies provide “unprecedented convenience” for money-laundering crimes. It states that China’s current legal framework has not kept pace with the development of digital asset technology, which has made it difficult to carry out money-laundering investigations, collect evidence, and recover implicated assets. It specifically notes that mixers, privacy coins, and decentralized exchanges increase the difficulty of tracing transactions and gathering evidence. The article argues that treating behaviors such as using mixers or privacy coins, quickly transferring large amounts of crypto assets in suspicious circumstances, and conducting frequent high-value transactions through anonymous wallets as possible indicators of an intent to launder money.