Bitcoin Forum

If there were ownership in bitcoins, when you received bitcoins from another person, you would be exposed to the risk of someone demanding that you return the bitcoins to them, arguing that they are the owner instead of you – possible reasons for this could be, for example, if the bitcoins were stolen from them or if the agreement under which they sold the bitcoins was nullified.

http://www.coindesk.com/what-tokyos-mt-gox-ruling-means-for-bitcoin-in-japan/

Interesting read, easy enough to follow even for someone without a legal background.

It seems like a few issues brought up would be exchanges NEED to have some sort of cold storage offline procedure to protect hacks.

Also he's basically saying btc is fine to use under Japanese law, bit don't trust and exchanges because it kind of creates a "joint ownership" and if the coins get lost, then you're out of luck

I haven't heard about that court decision since now, but I am not surprised by that judgement.
I guess in my country(Austria) there would be a similar judgement.

I also think, that if the whole case would have been about cash, there would be a similar judgement. Bringing physical notes to a bank, doesn't mean, that they have to give you the exact same notes back, if you request it.

I does not mean a lot, the ruling is political shaped to the current situation. This is the same as any other money. If you are a stealing weasel and you take some money that is not yours then will you have to pay back or enjoy a nice stay in hotel Jail (most likely both). People needs to learn that bitcoin = money. This is also why I always lol at those thread "How do I get 1 BTC fast", same as saying "How do I get $265 fast".

This is ridiculous, and since Bitcoin is a currency (rather than a commodity), this ruling can't be enforced.

For example, imagine that a bank robbery occurs. The thieves steal some $100 million worth of fiat, and then deposit a part of that money in a stock exchange to buy some equities.

According to the latest ruling, the cops will be confiscating the fiat from the person who sold the equities. They should be confiscating the equities instead.

But that is even possible with fiat. I mean if you have money whose serial number is known coming from a bank robbery then your money is taken without a refund.

And bitcoins can be followed the same way up to the single satoshi.

The amount of stuff going on with gox and new things being put in place is good in some places even with new rulings in Japan are good. No protection of customers’ bitcoins from insolvency? With any legit company they should have some insurance to at least cover peoples funds in the event of hacked or stolen funds like in gox case.. Still to this day I believe that GOX still has the coins somewhere held and it would not surprise me all the coins that have been sold in bulk and pushed the prices down over the last few weeks where coins to from gox or other company's who have fallen apart and cashing in. Little odd for one exchange to dump a load of coins without any real solid proof that it was Bitfinex with their so called automatic liquidate system. Would be nice to get some tracing of the coins or find where gox coins really went to. Am all for new rulings to improve bitcoin. I think that in the future, if any exchange is having vast amounts of coin and also fiat funds their reserves for events like this to stop any more problems in the future.

It's not recognized as a currency in most countries.