Identifying Counterfeit Behavior in Different Types of Currency: A Perspective from the Legal Nature of Currency

伪造不同类型货币的犯罪客观行为分析：从货币的法律性质切入

The currency system is one of the most crucial and fundamental elements of a nation's economic system, thus making currency issuance and other related aspects of currency circulation a primary focus of criminal law protection. On the long road of currency development, currency has moved from physical carriers to electromagnetic data as carriers, from physical currency issued by the state to legal digital currency. During this period, various private virtual currencies with different design logics have also emerged. However, the literature on the counterfeiting of private virtual currencies is relatively unexplored, and the research on the counterfeiting of legal digital currency is still in the beginning stage. Given this, the article chooses to take the legal nature of modern Chinese currency as a point of entry, on the basis of which it summarises and reflects on the past views , and combines the corresponding legal norms and judicial practice to sort out the nature of the physical form of currency, private virtual currency and legal digital currency, as well as to further analyse the corresponding counterfeiting behaviour.

货币制度是一国经济制度中最重要、最根本的要素，故而对于货币发行以及其他涉及货币流通等相关的内容是刑法重点保护的对象。在货币发展的漫漫长路上，货币从有体物载体走向以电磁数据为载体，从国家发行的实物货币到法定数字货币，在此期间还诞生了各类设计逻辑相异的私人虚拟货币。但是，过往的文献对于伪造私人虚拟货币行为的探讨是较为欠缺的，且对于伪造法定数字货币行为的研究也尚在起步阶段。鉴于此，笔者选择将中国现代货币的法律性质作为一个切入点，总结并反思过往学者的观点，结合相应的法律规范与司法实践，梳理实物形式货币、私人虚拟货币和法定数字货币的性质并进一步分析相应的伪造行为。