Bitcoin Ecosystem Faces Taiwan Proposal for 2-Year AI Revival Penalty

Crypto News

Bitcoin (BTC) faces a new regulatory frontier after Taiwan lawmaker Weng Hsiao-ling proposed on July 7 that abusive AI reconstructions of deceased people should carry criminal penalties. The legislative record shows her office, backed by the Legislative Yuan’s legal affairs analysis, recommended adding a provision to the Criminal Code for computer-synthesized false images that insult the dead, with a maximum sentence of two years in prison. The proposal responds to a fast-growing commercial market that has moved far beyond the 2016 South Korean public-television experiment in which a mother met a recreated version of her daughter through virtual-reality gear. That project required months of work and drew more than 20 million YouTube views, but current services on Chinese marketplaces such as Taobao begin at about 10 yuan for a simple animated clip or synthetic voice. More advanced tiers include real-time voice interaction for several thousand yuan and fully customized digital humans priced from roughly 50,000 yuan. Some providers have added recurring fees, including a first-year charge of 1,980 yuan and a renewal price of 2,980 yuan, prompting criticism that the model monetizes grief. Cambridge University researchers have warned that subscription costs, advertising and sponsored messages could turn posthumous avatars into commercial channels, while ethicists argue that such tools may delay healthy mourning. In Japan, survey data cited in the policy discussion showed more than 60% of respondents opposed being digitally revived after death, strengthening the case for advance directives such as digital do-not-reanimate clauses. The unresolved question is who controls a reconstructed personality, because relatives may disagree and the deceased cannot consent. China’s internet regulator has already begun rectifying parts of the sector, and funeral companies have started packaging the tools alongside traditional services. For crypto users, the same control questions already appear around AI crypto wallet access and AI trading bot software, making the Taiwan move an early test of how far law will reach into persistent digital personas.

Bitcoin liquidity conditions in South Korea offered a more immediate market signal, as activity across the country’s five major exchanges rebounded after a six-week contraction. The measurement window ran from 2 p.m. local time on July 24 to 2 p.m. on July 31, making the rebound a clean week-over-week comparison rather than a partial recovery. Exchange data covering Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit and Gopax showed combined trading value of about 9.9 trillion won for the week from July 24 to July 31, an increase of 15.66%, or roughly 1.3 trillion won, from about 8.5 trillion won in the previous period. The reversal followed a steady decline that began in early June, when weekly turnover stood near 17.7 trillion won, then moved through 15.4 trillion won, 14.6 trillion won and 13.4 trillion won before slipping to about 10 trillion won in early July and 8.6 trillion won in the middle of the month. Although the latest figure remains well below the June level, it suggests that altcoin and Bitcoin pairs are regaining some participation after a summer slowdown. The five-exchange group is the main retail gateway for Korean digital asset trading, so weekly changes are often read as a proxy for risk appetite. The competitive picture did not change at the top, but the gap shifted. Upbit remained first with a 61.54% share, though that was down 3.92 percentage points from the week before. Bithumb gained the most ground, rising 6.57 percentage points to 33.2%, while Coinone slipped 2.51 points to 4.54%. Korbit and Gopax recorded only marginal changes, at 0.69% and 0.03%, respectively. For market structure, the important point is not a single exchange winner but the breadth of the rebound: when volume returns across multiple venues, order-book depth and price discovery tend to improve, reducing the risk that thin liquidity amplifies sudden moves in major tokens. No exchange changed rank despite the share moves.

COINOTAG’s own analysis ties these threads to Bitcoin’s continuing role as the market’s reserve asset. The Fear and Greed Index reads 27/100, a fear reading that leaves sentiment far from all-time-high conditions, while Bitcoin accounts for 69.6% of the COINOTAG-tracked market and the tracked universe carries a market capitalization of $1,827,680,809,046. Those proprietary metrics differ from global industry figures, but they show capital still concentrated in the largest asset as regulators examine digital persona rights and exchanges test a volume recovery. The legislative record in Taipei and exchange data in Seoul are primary inputs. The practical takeaway is that infrastructure, identity rules and liquidity are tightening at the same time.