Six people teamed up to rob a cryptocurrency dealer for 400,000 USDT, and in the end, each was sentenced to more than ten years in prison. It sounds surreal, but this is not a fictional story; it’s a real criminal case.

If this incident had happened two or three years ago, the focus of discussion might have been "Does virtual currency have legal protection or not?" The announcement in September last year clarified that personal transactions of virtual currency are indeed invalid under civil law. But there is a key misconception here — invalidity under civil law does not mean there is no protection under criminal law.

In other words, your transaction contract may not be legally binding, but if you use a knife to rob money, that is definitely a robbery, and you will go to jail. As a carrier of property rights, virtual currency has never been lacking in criminal law protection.

Six lives lost, half a lifetime exchanged for 400,000 yuan — this deal is simply not worth it. Whether it’s a cryptocurrency dealer or an off-exchange retail investor, this case is enough to make everyone rethink what true risk management really is.