The People's Bank of China and seven other ministries jointly issued regulatory provisions concerning virtual currencies and the tokenization of real-world assets (RWA): The People's Bank of China, National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Ministry of Public Security, State Administration for Market Regulation, China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, China Securities Regulatory Commission, and State Administration of Foreign Exchange. The document is titled "Notice on Further Preventing and Disposing of Risks Related to Virtual Currencies and Other Areas" (Yinfa [2026] No. 42) ("No. 42 Document").
Previously, industry insiders had leaked news about the upcoming new regulations. After the official release, the content was extensive, and upon reading, it became clear that almost all of the compliance explorations in the RWA field had been addressed in the documents issued by the eight departments and the CSRC.
Let's quickly review:
1. The nature of the No. 42 Document
In 2017 and 2021, regulators issued 94 and 924 notices respectively. Since then, this field has long