digital assets

On November 13, 2025, CIEL Deputy Director Professor Yueh-Ping Yang was invited to attend the “International Forum on Virtual Asset Crimes Investigation and Cross-Border Cooperation,” hosted by the Anti-Money Laundering Office, Executive Yuan. The forum brought together expert representatives from domestic and international government agencies to engage in in-depth discussions on topics including tracking illicit virtual asset flows, combating online fraud, and strengthening cross-border cooperation.

Deputy Director Yang served as a panelist in the session titled “Stablecoins and Chinese Web: Money Laundering and Clearing Services between Digital Asset and FIAT.” The session featured keynote presentations by Mathieu H. L. and Simon Roch from FIU France. From legal and regulatory perspectives, Deputy Director Yang highlighted the following key points:

• Traditional financial crime investigations have focused on monitoring money flows; however, in the era of digital finance, the boundary between money flows and data flows is increasingly blurred, calling for a rethinking of crime prevention strategies.
• In virtual asset–related crimes, the key points for investigation may be shifting from unregulated OTCs to unregulated decentralized finance (DeFi).
• Within DeFi ecosystems, SNS platforms, such as Telegram or Wechat, play a critical role in facilitating communication and coordination. Future criminal investigations should therefore extend beyond regulating financial intermediaries (e.g., VASPs) to also consider the role of digital platform service providers.

CIEL will continue to engage in international exchanges and work alongside government authorities and law enforcement agencies to advance the development of financial regulation and crime prevention frameworks for virtual assets.

On April 25, 2025, Deputy Director Professor Yueh-Ping Yang of CIEL attended the award ceremony hosted by the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC), where he was honored with the 2024 Ta-You Wu Memorial Award.

Since 2018, Professor Yang has dedicated his research to blockchain finance and the regulation of virtual assets. His work spans a wide range of topics, including initial coin offerings, the issuance and settlement of security-type virtual assets, regulation of virtual asset trading platforms, decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), anti-money laundering (AML) measures for virtual assets, cross-border supervision, and comparative legal studies on international virtual asset regulation. His research on Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) was particularly distinguished, as it was one of only four papers selected globally at the 2022 Washington FinTech Week and was subsequently published in the SSCI-indexed Northwestern Journal of International Law and Business.

Professor Yang’s research achievements not only contribute significantly to academic scholarship but have also had a substantial impact on the development of Taiwan’s virtual asset regulatory framework over the past five years. He has been invited to provide policy consultation, legal recommendations, and training to multiple government agencies, including the Financial Supervisory Commission, the Executive Yuan’s Anti-Money Laundering Office, the Central Bank, the Ministry of Digital Affairs, and the Ministry of Justice. His contributions include assisting authorities in drafting the AML registration system for Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs), the draft Virtual Asset Service Act, and regulatory guidelines for VASPs and stablecoins, thereby making a profound impact on both theory and practice.

On February 25, 2025, PwC Taiwan hosted the seminar “Decoding New Trends in Virtual Assets: Innovation, Applications, and Challenges.” The event focused on the latest developments in virtual assets, their innovative applications, and related regulatory issues.

Speakers included Richard Watanabe, COO of Financial Services at PwC Taiwan; Kordan Ou, CEO of KryptoGO; Attorney Yu-Hsun Lee, Partner at PwC Legal; and PwC Taiwan accountants Shang-Tun Wu and Yu-Chen Hu. They shared insights on the opportunities and challenges of virtual assets from financial, legal, accounting, and industry perspectives, while also discussing how to strike a balance between regulation and innovation to promote a stable and healthy market.

Deputy Director Yueh-Ping Yang of CIEL was also invited to the seminar to share his views on emerging trends in virtual asset regulation. He introduced the core framework of Taiwan’s current registration system for Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) and elaborated on the forthcoming Virtual Asset Service Act draft bill. He highlighted its key regulatory features and the ways in which it represents a significant advancement beyond the existing registration regime.

For more details, please refer to PwC Taiwan’s coverage of the seminar: https://www.pwc.tw/zh/news/press-release/press-20250226-1.html