Qualification of Crimes Related to the Use of Modern Electronic Entities: the Experience of Germany

Comprehensive legal regulation of relations arising in connection with the development of the digital economy currently involves the establishment of the grounds and conditions for bringing persons to responsibility for illegal actions in the new crypto sphere of legal relations, including criminal liability. At the same time, this issue is most acute in connection with the emergence and evolution of crypto - currencies-digital entities that erase any boundaries, allowing you to «move away» from accounting for income, paying taxes, controlling financial flows, and so on. The latter is related to the risks and threats posed by this «new money». After all, unlike the use of digital technologies (i.e. the appropriate software) for criminal purposes, where a certain qualification of the attacker is required, almost everyone can use the cryptocurrency to commit illegal actions. Since 2013, the German Government began to recognize Bitcoin as a digital currency, indicating that such currency does not apply to electronic money or to the so-called «functional» currency (including foreign currency). In the future, virtual currencies in Germany were recognized as a financial instrument (2017), and in the banking legislation of Germany they were recognized as private funds and specific units of financial accounting. The article analyzes some aspects of the qualification of crimes related to the use of modern electronic entities in Germany.