Chinese court upholds legality of Bitcoin ownership, BTC protected by China's property laws

Published on by Cryptoslate | Published on

A court in Hangzhou, China, upheld Bitcoin's status as "Virtual property." The ruling reaffirms that Bitcoin is legal to own in China and indicates to holders that they will be protected by the country's legal system in disputes.

The first case of Bitcoin property infringement was resolved in the Hangzhou Digital Court, as first reported by The Beijing News.

The local court confirmed that the Chinese legal system recognizes Bitcoin as "Virtual property" with legal protections.

In 2013, the plaintiff purchased 2.675 BTC for 20,000 yuan from a store on Taobao, the leading Chinese online marketplace, allegedly operated by the defendant, Shanghai Technology Company.

In 2017, the plaintiff wanted to access the funds and found the store was closed and could not contact the operator to gain possession of their Bitcoin.

Between the plaintiff purchasing the Bitcoin and the trial, cryptocurrency trading was banned in China and consequently prohibited on Taobao.

Despite the plaintiff losing the case, the local court still made an important ruling on Bitcoin.

"Bitcoin holds the attributes of property. It's valuable, scarce, and disposable. Therefore, we should recognize it as virtual property according to the"General Civil Law." Virtual property is legally protected by the laws of the People's Republic of China," stated a translation of a passage in the article by The Beijing News.

An important distinction is that facilitating trading and mining Bitcoin is still illegal in China.

The case holds historic importance in terms of recognizing the legality of ownership of the digital asset in one of Bitcoin's largest markets.

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