Bitcoin Forum

The Virtual is Real: An Argument for Characterizing Bitcoins as Private Property
Via http://www.thelegrandgroup.com/blogs/post/The-Virtual-Is-Real/ (http://www.thelegrandgroup.com/blogs/post/The-Virtual-Is-Real/)

"The usage of a bitcoin is necessarily a matter of exclusion because bitcoins are inherently highly rivalrous. By inherently highly rivalrous I mean that if one person uses a bitcoin, it is impossible for someone else to use that bitcoin at the same time. In contrast, other information based resources, like ideas, are capable of being used by a multitude of persons at the same time. Basically, a bitcoin is more like a spoon than a song. If I am eating with a spoon it is impossible for you to eat with that spoon at the same time. In contrast, we may both sing the song."

Do you think bitcoin should be considered private property? Also, what is going to happen to your bitcoin if you pass away? Cryptocurrency is offering exciting, new options within many different industries. The discussion within the bitcoin community will need to address these points at some time, and I am interested in hearing your opinion.

I think, that Bitcoin is more than a Private Property.

Any known Private Property can be taken by a third party (thiefs, government, law enforcement etc). There is no way to avoid it.

Bitcoin has ways to secure your "property", that no third party can take it. I would call Bitcoin "Super Private Property".

The balance in your wallet is of course private property, I'm not sure why you would even need to mention it. Bitcoin is just money and your money is your property isn't it? or am I missing something here? Do you want to define it because it's purely virtual unlike fiat? You have to keep in mind that right now, Bitcoin is valuable only through it's associated dollar-value, by itself its worth nothing. Businesses wouldn't accept Bitcoin if they couldn't convert it to fiat.

Bitcoin is actually a private property as you asked if you die what will happen to your coins, basically they will be there forever if no one can get into it by hacking or any other method, there was someone one day mentioning this thing that a friend of his died in a road accident and he had some bitcoins stored in a wallet which he only knows the address about, so if there is no method of getting into a wallet just by knowing its address then they would probably be locked down forever.

Bitcoin network or bitcoin blockchain can't be considered private as it is not control by any central body. However bitcoin can be said private as bitcoin can be owned by any private company, any person, any institution or even government and in case like when the owner of bitcoin get demised those bitcoin can't be used without private key and if owner have given access to their private key to other people they can easily use it own it just like in banks you can put your parents/relatives name and give them access if you don't remain in this world.

bitcoin: THE NETWORK PROTOCOL
is a song. where individuals agree to the words(rules) to sing(accept) by coming to a consensus, compromising and eventually agreeing if they all as a majority want to improve the song.

btc: the unit of measure (the funds)
is a spoon. though it can belong to anyone who has access to the spoon(the private key of that ledger entry). but as long as only one person is holding the spoon(private key). then the spoon belongs to the one person holding the key.

no single person holds the key to the network protocol. because there is no key to the network protocol.

a better analogy is not a song vs spoon. but:
a microphone vs a song
a spoon vs a family meal

Yes obviously bitcoin is a private property because it was for the first time developed for trading it like barter system within website but later on due to its simplicity and advantages people started using bitcoin as money. And no government have right over this property

Please spare me with your bizarre socialist analogies. Bitcoin is nothing that is meant to be eaten up just because all socialists are hungry and holding empty spoons. :D

Regardless of what kind of categorization governments will choose to squeeze the highest amount of BTC out of their citizen, to me Bitcoin is clearly private property. It doesn't matter if the property is stored at multiple locations in a distributed way. As long as I'm holding the access key, I'm the owner.

The problem of passing on one's property in case of unexpected death is not specific to Bitcoin. If you don't leave a hint on how to find / recover hidden property it will likely be lost forever. In the case of Bitcoin, you must somehow ensure that your loved ones get the private key(s). That's it.

ya.ya.yo!

lol
bitcoin network is the meal. and the coin is the individual that has his own spoon.
whats in your spoon you have. but that doesnt mean you get to own the whole family meal

yes there might be debates about father adam back saying he owns the family meal because 10 years ago he was a chicken farmer and the family meal is a roast chicken, and the family can only take their spoons under his terms.

yes there might be debates about mother gavin who boiled the veg, saying the family meal belongs to no one. but anyone with a spoon can own their spoonful of food.
(adam back supporters insinuate anyone not liking adam back must secretly want to have adam backs mindset(failed bait and switch))

but gavin and adam , or any other dev should not say they own the meal(network)
instead the family(anyone) can individually have what they want and whatever is on the individuals spoon belongs to the person holding the spoon.


if the family meal (the ledger) belongs to one person then bitcoin becomes no better than the corrupt fiat system.

Need to use your spoon for lunch Franky, I'll return it afterwards of course. You just carry on singing while I eat your, er, I mean my lunch :D

if you want my private key(spoon) you can come take it from me. and if you get my private key(spoon) then you can have whats held on the spoon
but you cannot claim you own the whole meal on the table, even if your daddy was a chicken farmer. the meal is for everyone to enjoy. not just you and your daddy

For it is a private property. We buy bitcoin and own it privately. We also consider it as currency. For me, as long as you own it, it is consider as private property.

It's private property then. Like Bitcoins are.

the network is not private property, its public property. anyone can use:

separate debate from that..
the funds(btc aka bitcoins) are private property, not public. only the holders of the keys can use.

i think your trying (and failing) to stretch the misinterpretation of the currency units vs network (simply because they use the same name) for you to pretend its the same thing. and thus attempt to want a dictatorship of the network, because funds are private.

Fiat currency is also private property so I don't see the reason why Bitcoin wouldn't be private property also. But this is not defined only by fact that you own it or that you har bought it but it should be determined by the law according tow strict defined criteria.

What do you think of the idea that bitcoin yes is "Property" but not nessacerily "private".  What i mean by this is that if there was ever to be a private key collision, improbable i know, but possible none the same.  Who owns the bitcoin?   ::)

Just depending from who the people are seeing from. I think bitcoin can be considered for a private property and the public property too. but in this cases are depending with the perspection from the each person about that. just like if we are considered the bitcoin from their value i think we will see the private property in itself, caused by the value of bitcoin are using by the each person. but not about from the tech preview bitcoin can be considered as the public property like their anonymity are useful for a lot of the people or public.

this is probably better to use the word "authority"
bitcoin network has no central authority. no corporation or individual has authority over the bitcoin network
private keys authorise the holder to spend the funds. who ever holds the private key has the authority of the funds.
EG multisig agrees to multiple people having authority when all signing together, but not signing individually.
EG writing the private key into your 'last will' to only be opened on your death, by your named successor gives them the authority
EG negatively, a hacker gets the private key then gains authority to spend the funds

if you keep your key private so no one else can have it. only you have authority of the funds

If it was public property, then where's my right-of way to march into the mining farms and borrow a little hashing power? You could use your public access too Franky, change everything around into your socialist Bitcoin Unlimited paradise! Oh no, wait you can't. Nothing to do with the network nodes being private property though, right?


And you really are the strawman of all strawmen aren't you? You're refuting something I didn't even say.



The only person trying to muddy the distinction between the network and the currency units is you. Don't you remember, muddying the picture to confuse and scare people is the only thing you ever do.




All you're proving Franky is that you're not capable of having a reasonable discussion; whenever someone says something you disagree with, you go into full-on witch-burning mode. Doesn't that make you the dictator?

I treat bitcoin as my everyday money, i used it to pay the bills, for airtime load, and much more.. so its more of a private property to me. and for as long as it stays on my wallet its mine :)

a mining farm is not the public network.
an ASIC does not have a hard drive so has no blockchain. and ASIC does not relay transactions. an ASIC only produces hashes.
mining farms only produces hashes.. then the farm connects to a pool. and then separately, the pool connects to the network.

thus you are pretending your public right of way of walking down a street allows you to walk into anyones house uninvited purely because there are houses on the sides of the streets connected via a garden gate

stop trying to make it an all or nothing debate to push your dictatorial regime
network=public no authority
coins=private key holders authority

your analogy
street=public no authority
house=private key holders authority

I think bitcoin is more of a personal property to me. It carries the same principle as movable or you can transfer it in another location, virtually ;) I think it will follow the same law as money since bitcoin is same as currency also. But with absence of law,when your gone on this world,your bitcoin will be gone  also unless you give your private keys to someone before your demised. :)

Yes!The balance of bitcoin in our wallet is of course private property.I thing it's so easy to realize If Bitcoin is just money so why not consider our money is our property,isn't it?

So, the Bitcoin network is public property, according to Franky.


That means the public has a right to use it, no?


Except they don't. All the public have is the ability to convince the miners to let them use the network, by including a transactions fee that is high enough to tempt them. No rights. no entitlements.

And that does not conform to the definition of public property. Sounds like a business, run as a service, paid for by willing users. Private property.

Another important point is that at the inception of Bitcoin it had no inherent value and real world goods/services could not be exchanged with it.

Seems like some are arguing semantics. All's I know is that the bitcoins I have in my possession are mines and no one else's until I sell them, trade them, use them to buy goods and services, give them to others or gamble them away.

How is that an important point? Certainly not against the notion of Bitcoin being private property.
It's not because something has no value that it couldn't be considered private property.

As bitcoin is launched as open source and available to public for any types of modification so i think bitcoin should be considered as public property as well as bitcoin market is driven by supply/demand of bitcoin by large trder's community. SO i will say bitcoin is public property.

Many comments in this thread are very ignorant of law.
Bitcoin/bitcoin is not a public nor a private property.

The reasons why governments find it so hard to classify what bitcoin is  
(ex: currency, commodity, asset, etc)  is because of its many contradictory properties.
For example, bitcoin can be passed p2p very easily like a currency, but it also in theory,
gains value over time due to its limited coin cap, like an appreciable asset. So from this
viewpoint bitcoin could be a property, yet, there is no such actual object that exists
outside the blockchain. You can not take your bitcoins out from the system, since those
individual bitcoins are the system. So, from a legal point of view, there  is no actual
property, only a temporary right to control virtual assets within a virtual platform.

Basically, when you get a private key that has bitcoin within it, you have a right to
temporary control. You have no right to that property, since there is no legal property.
Claiming that bitcoin is some form of property is comparable to when a person buys virtual
items within a game (ex: TF2, CS:GO, In-Game Purchases). That purchaser has no rights
to that item by law and is usually stated as so within the ToS of the game. In fact, that item
can not exist outside that game and the game developers have no obligation under any laws
to maintain the game indefinitely so that your virtual item which you paid fiat for, can
continue to exist.

The reason why the laws and interpretations are all over the place with different governments
and different legal jurisdictions is because no one actually knows what Bitcoin/bitcoin falls
into. It may even be possible that one day Bitcoin will fall into a new legal property type that
has not existed prior. There are many complicated legal aspects to Bitcoin that are currently
unresolved and in dispute.

Interestingly, if you think Bitcoin should be found to be a property and bitcoin is a public or
private property, then the bitcoin devs will be obligated by law to maintain and regulate the
Bitcoin system indefinitely. So, if you want bitcoin to remain an open-source free participatory
non-legally controlled and regulated financial platform, then you shouldn't be arguing it is an
actual property, since you do not know what you are actually asking for.

So, if a hacker steals your coins, they didn't steal your property, they gained control of your
temporary right and rightfully transferred them in accordance with the Bitcoin protocol.
The crime that was committed would be some type of computer hacking crime and not theft.

If you don't like that this is the Bitcoin system, than go back to regulated insured systems.
Satoshi created the system this way, so that it couldn't be easily controllable under current laws.

EDIT: This is my personal opinion and not in any way a legal opinion that should be relied
upon in any legal jurisdiction. Every jurisdiction is different in law and interpretation, and individuals
should always retain an attorney within their own jurisdiction, for a proper legal opinion as to their rights.

The concept of money is something a lot of us take for granted due to not having it become worthless over night or go through a depression. Bitcoin is the same because we agree to a value for it,once we do not it is worthless like clam shells of old.
Private would mean you do not mean to transact in it or am I missing something? Once you use it,it is no longer private and no longer something you hold. Seems faulty in thinking that you hold it privately with a public ledger attached to it,but the discussion most likely goes beyond my grasp of property.

thinking long and hard, i have to agree.. so lets thrash it out to get a slightly better term

coins(btc):
"authorised possession" is a closer approximation..(still not perfect)
if you possess the key you have authority to use it.
an example of this is UK car registrations. it says "authorised keeper" on the log book. not owner. not user.
court orders can be filed to change possession of the car over to them

but then the expression "possession is 9/10ths of the law" which requires further proof to decide who deserves it most based on how it was obtained.

if you and only you possess the key to use X, legally you are authorised to use it. however morally, well that is a separate debate that needs to prove how you obtained it. to proclaim who 'owns' it.

this is why exchanges can run off with funds. legally they can prove someone handed them funds willingly to a private key only the exchange possesses, without the use of hacking. thus making the exchange the authorised user.
morally 'why' the exchange has the coins would side with the customer IF he shows he deposited funds under some good faith/terms&conditions that the exchange hands it back when the customer requests a withdrawal.
but IF there is no proof of goodfaith/terms.. then exchange wins the moral argument.

much like lending a lawn mower to a neighbour. if you cannot prove how you obtained it and cannot prove you contracted them to give it back. its not yours any more
or letting someone use the car. if you cannot prove you let them use it and cannot prove you were not the one using it, you pay the parking ticket

network:
there is no owner and no one possesses the entire network, there is just a common agreement of users to do things within some rules each have agreed to and compromised to, to communicate and use without issue. the rules are made by the common agreement of every node. not some central party.
like a financial trust. no one owns it. many can benefit from it based on the rules of the trust.

if you are able to accept data within the common range of the rules then you are authorised to use the network

commodity vs asset: the coins are not a raw material used for making other produce. so not a commodity. coins are an asset(possession).

possession alone does not equal ownership. but if you can prove how you obtained it moral. then it is deemed yours.
EG copyright/patent laws. just because you created a digital image does not mean its yours instantly. you have to register it to have proof that you are the moral possessor of it, to then claim it is yours

Well, what about your Facebook or your Twitter account? Are they also some kind of a private property? Becuase if they weren't hacked nobody else can use them either. Yes everybody can see what you post there but same goes for the Bitcoin network which is a public property like was said above.

I think only lawers can say whether it is a private property or not. And then that definition would stay until other lawers would dispose of it.

I don't know if it can still be a form of possession.
The problem here is, how do you prove that you are the only person with that private key?
Normally, the fact that you can prove in some way that it is your property, that is proof enough
(ex: witnesses, certifications, receipts, photos, etc). But with a private key, you can not guarantee
that someone else hasn't generated it or that you haven't willingly provided it to someone else.
You could prove that you were the original "owner" by outside proofs (such as listed above), but
you can never prove after that point. In theory, you could steal your own coins and claim theft for the
insurance payout, and no one could prove otherwise (if done correctly).

If you were obligated, by law, to register each btc tx with your personal ID info and who you transferred
to, then we could create a legal chain of possession and/or property rights. Without that, no one can
have rights within the unregulated decentralized blockchain system, IMO.



I agree. There are no rights guaranteed and is willful participation.



I agree it is more like an asset.
But as to whether it could be a commodity: If you burn bitcoins in a burn address in order to
convert those bitcoins into another form, can't bitcoin be a commodity (produce) in theory?
BTC has properties that are currently unknown to us, that may have different purposes in
the distant future. The fact is that we know what Satoshi "intended" it to be, but we don't
know how it will end up 50 years from now because it is so novel and adaptable.

As to registration to prove possessor claim: I agree that it would be needed to prove possession,
but I would argue that it is anti-Bitcoin to do so and would ultimately destroy all the benefits and
reasoning for using the Bitcoin network. This includes, legal regulatability, decentralization,
pseudonymous aspect, fungibility, and etc. Bitcoin registration leads to Bitcoin destruction.

Bitcoin's Property rights argument is like the argument about blacklisting of coins.
If you can create "clean" and "dirty" coins, you are destroying bitcoin through non-fungibility and if
you make bitcoin as a legal property (public or private), you are destroying bitcoin through forced regulation.


Satoshi designed the system to outmaneuver the current world systems of governance and finance.
By attempting to place Bitcoin/bitcoin within a familiar box, we are trying to outmaneuver Satoshi.

Bitcoin is a "product" that provide security...
You can see bitcoin with a lot of points of views, you can see it like a scheme, a product, a coin, whatever...
And that's why we will have a long way behind, each country(or people) will say a different thing.

Yes the balance is more than just a private property but a super private property as someone has already mentioned. With bitcoin, everything you have a very high degree of privacy as no individual or government can challenge to forfeit it from you. You are the owner in 100% control of it, why not we simply call it a private property ?

to possess is not to own. many people own the house keys to my home. they are authorised to possess the keys and authorised to come in my house. but they do not own my house.
it requires further proof of which key possessor "owns" what can be opened with the key.
EG if i can prove they have the deed. the house is their.

EG if i can prove by conversation logs that i asked someone for some coin and then use the ledger to show i received the coin with some conversation logs of saying i dont need to repay the coin. then the coin morally sits with me.

this is why i said possession and not owner.. possession is not ownership on its own merit. but on merit of other data

hmm.. you got me thinking :D
technically a satoshi is the commodity
as that is the raw unit of measure behind it all.. and 100m satoshis used to 'form' a btc.
btc is just a 'basket'/group/common name of 100m satoshis.
just like bovine cattle is a 'basket'/group/common name of the underlying commodity, beef.
satoshi=commodity
btc=product/name of collection


we shouldnt be thinking of centralised registration applications requests for moral proof by default.. but more so local evidence: of receipt. chat logs, etc
EG if ever in court we just show a receipt and chat log as evidence. no requirement of a centralized authority to store receipts/chatlogs.
though some could deem the posts in the exchange/escrow category as evidence and deem this forum as a central store of proof.. for those trading within the forum.

but thats just semantics of being lazy to not make your own terms and conditions/contracts locally and rely on just chat logs as moral proof

though the bitcoins own ledger is a store of receipt. we can also hold our own logs of "why" to cover the moral debate of who deserves it
especially with btc changing hands so fast that a central permanent store of current "why" x deserves z, wont work anyway in many cases.

EG coinbase just needs their own deposit history logs and their own terms of service to show why they deserve to keep the btc they possess. they dont need to register their T&C's with an authority.

though many can debate the authenticity of evidence if it has not been verified by third party.

but thats a debate that can be done in court if someone lost their btc to someone else immorally
evidence does not require centralization by default.

Usually, when it comes to property that is worth a sizable amount, governments require
registration with a centralized system to create a more efficient system of adjudication.
For example, houses have deeds, cars and boats have titles, insurance policies or other
agreement systems have contracts, a certain right to use things like driving a car or
owning a gun have licenses and/or permits. These forms of proof are usually stored in other
facilities to prove your claims of ownership. If I have a copy of your deed, title, or etc,
but with my name in it, the issue is which version was officially filed with its proper regulatory
agency. In a court of law, cases that involve these types of documents are usually easy
to determine ownership.

In court, if you have email communications between two parties that agree on terms on how btc tx
will occur and etc, and the other party violates those terms, and one takes the other to court to have
their btc returned or the equivalent in fiat, that agreement was memorialized within the email chain and
is the contract proof and the registered agency would be the court and the mechanism used would be
contract law interpretation.

With Bitcoin as it is intended to be used (no third parties), there are no such documented proof or
regulated agency to confirm registered ownership. The blockchain ledger is the only proof needed and
it is backed by private key control. The only required proof of ownership is the proof of possession or
control. If you apply legal rights on top of this new form of ownership (privatekey control), it will
need to have a legally recognized registration entity for efficient adjudication of bitcoin thefts and recoveries,
otherwise the court system will be overloaded with bitcoin thefts and other filings that are worthless, mostly
he said she saids, never go anywhere with final resolutions, or have contradictory legal determinations by
different judges with basically the same case arguments and evidence. The reason why there is no one voice
now as to what Bitcoin/bitcoin is on a legal aspect is because it violates property rights and laws by its nature.

I would argue, once again, that any such registration system would contradict Bitcoin's intention, but
would be needed for true enforcement along the lines of legal property as we know it.




Maybe. That could be argued in a way.
I'm only referring to the destruction of some amount of btc, in order to create a new system/
object/form/whatever. Since it has not been created yet, its hard to envision all the different
possibilities, but for simple example imagine a random system that will create an original art
object/piece based upon the the past history and date of the burn destruction of 0.0015btc. In
this way, bitcoin is no longer an asset or a currency and becomes a commodity that is consumed
to create a new original work of art. (BTC is also a commodity for Coloredcoin created from BTC burn.)





My point is that for bitcoin to be classified as a legal private property, it will need something
more than proofs of purchase. We will need a system that provides "proof of non-transfer",
meaning that we can prove that you didn't transfer it away in an attempt to deceive. A registration
system would be used to not only provide "proof of non-transfer" since each tx will be marked
with user ID from and user ID to, but also provide a ledger of "legal ownership", which will reside
for legal adjudication and governmental regulations.

I do not agree with this type of system, as I have said previously, I'm just saying this is where I
think it will lead. Majority of bitcoin thefts do not have agreements or receipts to fall back upon to
use in court systems.

When bitcoin is used as Satoshi "intended" only key control matters, even in theft. If we choose to
do otherwise, or argue that bitcoin can be a personal property or asset, we are effectively undermining
what Satoshi "intended".

Here is the question that I'm basing my belief upon:
Can you legally own anything that is a virtual asset, within a participatory non-regulated distributed virtual
ledger network, that does not provide any rights or guarantees by authority, and the only proof of asset ownership
within this decentralized system is that you can move that property, or that you could have moved that property?

If you can answer the above with a "yes" with a rational that is legally sound, I would be impressed.

with private property ownership, proof is needed.
if property is valuable, then people prefer the lazy/easy route of letting some third parties handle it. to avoid debate later.
Eg getting a lawyer draw up a document. a Will or something to show a transfer.
and items that are sales, inheritance and income tax directly related. then this third party is usually the government.

however possessing the key to something in 9 out of 10 times is enough. chances are you dont need to prove who you are when you use it.
most of the time there is never a problem so you never need to prove it. but if there is a problem(theft/hack/breach of contract) then proof is needed to decide the moral person who deserves it.

btc does not attach human identity to transactions. nor should it. bitcoin should not identify who "owns" the funds.
btc should be a "possession" rather than "ownership". to avoid the things you mentioned about the rabbit hole down to registration requirements..

allowing freedom of use by simple possession. where people, if they really care about their own coin can freely, locally and personally substantiate their claim by having their own records/evidence of how they got it. EG proving the lawnmower your neighbour uses should be yours
vs
calling it private property, which ends up with more headaches and more official logging of evidence.

It definitely is private property in some form, however I don't know how it would be most accurately defined. In my opinion this would be a good topic for debate, and may or may not be talked about enough already. I don't know what the consensus is.

I agree in part.

My issue is I think you can never have any rights toward bitcoin outside of regulated licensed
bitcoin exchanges. In a way, the bitcoins in our wallets are a form of lease, not ownership,
and the leasor is the bitcoin blockchain itself. I control the bitcoins, but I can never legally own them
or have a property rights toward them, since they are unregistered and unregulated.

If someone stole my bitcoins and I wasn't negligent, in theory, someone stole the blockchain's
property and the blockchain has responsibility to take action and investigate. Since the blockchain
isn't a living entity but just running code, it only cares about the private key control, so it automatically
determines that I'm no longer the rightful owner, the thief is, whether that is moral or not. It is an
instant adjudication without human intervention or desposition.

I think Bitcoin/bitcoin will never fit within our well defined (thousands of years worth) understanding
of "own" or "possess", but can only conform to a "temporary control" or "lease" which grants no ownership.

Or, I'm thinking too much and will be proven very wrong in a few years. Lol.
All I know for sure is that Satoshi created a great puzzle on many different levels.

For me  you bitcoin would be  you  own private property  for sure because  no one could able  to  touch  i but you  but  in terms  of legalization   it would be  an other  thing though   because  if someone  gets  you bitcoin  possesion you cant really file a case  againts  with it  because   bitcoin  is  not legal on some  countries.

Yes it is a private property as  if you use it, automatically it will be deducted in your wallet and it will be impossible to double spend that kind of amount. Also the security,pin ,codes protecting your wallets means that you own it and you are trying to protect it. Also when you die it is impossible to be use that is if you did not give your codes before dying.

The part about what will happen if you pass away is very cleber. I think people should have their passphrase and eberying printed and kept in the safe. If they die their family know its in the safe. No point on wasting good bitcoin :)

yep, its doesnt register your birth certificate or name or social security number. so its not 'official' ownership. thats why i conceded to the term possession. which is not out right ownership. just deemed authorised to use if you have the keys to use it.

again making it more closer to 'possession'. whoever posesses the keys to use it can use it.
though the ledger doesnt care who moved it. outside of the blockchain in a court you can attempt to legally(morally) prove your case of who deserves it and punish the party who used it immorally.


yep, again ..possession. which is not out right ownership. just deemed authorised to use if you have the keys to use it.


yea, its hard to pin it down to old terms. but atleast getting a close approximation helps the future determine the new terms
network (diverse/distributed ledger and no central location of rule)=no control, no leader, no authority.
coin=possession based on key holder
satoshi=commodity
btc=asset

Even experts are confused and can't come up with clear definition of bitcoin. According to US law - IRS treats Bitcoin as property.

Not that long ago IRS issued guidance with info that they will treat all virtual currencies - Bitcoin included - as property for federal tax purposes.

Meanwhile FinCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network) treats Bitcoin as a currency... and  then we have another agency - Commodity Futures Trading Commission - for them Bitcoin is a commodity!

Possession may be the only term that exists currently to describe it, but I still think its incorrect.

For example, if the Bitcoin network disappeared tomorrow, never to return, do you still possess
those bitcoins? No, you do not. You only possess the private keys. The bitcoins are only owned by
the blockchain, which grants no guarantees or rights to users or its token (or itself), and is entirely
virtual. Having possession of bitcoins would imply that the blockchain granted you rights that it
specifically denies granting.

So, when you "possessed" your bitcoins, in reality you never took any type of possession since they
never left their owner's "hands". In fact, transferring your bitcoins is performed within the owner and by
the owner and never outside the owner (unless in a third-party system). When you hold the private keys
to an address, that is the only possession that you may "possess" since it exists inside and outside the system,
whether that system is active or deactivated. But possessing those PKs does not automatically imply possession
of its contents, since the owner never granted rights to bitcoin possession itself.

So from a simple point of view, yes you possess those coins, but from a technical/legal point of view,
no one possesses any coins other than the blockchain itself. Humans (and one day AI) are only a means
for bitcoin to transfer itself. We are the property being used and granting rights to the blockchain, IMO.

If it must be a possession, I'd call it a false possession or deceptive possession.
Users who believe they have been granted rights should know that the opposite is true.

Even if bitcoin is not legal in a particular country and someone get access to your computer and stole it, I believe you can still challenge the person in the court because getting access to someone's computer without authorization is a serious criminal offence on its own and as per basic human rights.

"Ask not, what the blockchain can do for you, ask what you can do for the blockchain" :D

car keys.
if you posess the car keys its deemed you can use the car.
but you dont physically have the car in your pocket.. it is on the road(blockchain).
it is too big to be in your pocket. it will always be on the road.

and a repossession company(virus/hacker) can get a court order(trojan) to move the car off the road by either changing the locks(moving to their key). or they send the car to a destruction yard so no one uses it(address with no key).

if an earthquake/tsunami swallowed up all the roads and cars. then you do not posess the car anymore even if you have the key

but as long as the car is accessible to the road and you have the car key, you possess the car
ownership is a separate thing and more complex and thus i think ownership does not fit bitcoins terminology

but yes, even i said possession is not a perfect term. but a closer term than "ownership".
ownership and possession are not the same thing.
as ownership deems you have rights which we both agree is very questionable. possession just deems your simply able to use.
but again still not perfect term, just closer approximation

Lol. Yes, I guess I agree with that.

I pledge allegiance to the Bitcoin blockchain, of the United Nodes of our
Network, and to Decentralization for which why we exist, one chain, under
Satoshi, immutable, divisible and fungible for all!




Are the car keys in your example the bitcoins or the privatekey? Or both?
I think you can "possess" the privatekey, but the "possession" of the bitcoins are illusory.

I guess using your example, I would say that the radio in the car is the blockchain.
The carkeys (privatekey) gets me in to change the stations, but I can't possess the radio signals.
That is how I see it. Of course, how the legislators will see it, is what is most important.

keys=privkeys
car=coin
road=blockchain

no one owns the road.
everyone can use the road

the car is also on the road not no one owns the car. any family member with the keys or a thief with the right tools can use the car morally or immorally and take possession of it.

but if i am the only person with the keys then i am the only one that morally can use the car. which makes it in my possession (morally) while im the only key holder and the car is on a street i can get to.

again we are only talking about possession. not ownership

My issue with this example is that in my country, the roads are owned, possessed,
controlled, regulated by the state. They are a public use but privately held by the
state in a "public trust". They do not grant citizens a right to use them and have the
legal ability to restrict that public use. Depending on the circumstance, they are only
privileged use. Same with some other utilities in my country. Anyone can use the roads,
but only as long as they are used in accordance with the regulations that govern them.
So when you say blockchain is like the roads (and bitcoins are thus like cars = possession)
I have trouble seeing how it conforms within my country's laws.

Cars are also regulated and controlled by certain governmental agencies and you do not
have a right to drive a car, that is also a privilege. So I have problem with bitcoin being
a car, as well.

That is why I consider it like a rogue radio station, since like with private radio signals,
no country can easily stop or control them. No one can possess the radio signal but all can hear
it freely. Since bitcoin currently can not be regulated or controlled the way that roads are (in
my country) bitcoins fall into a limbo legal zone where either it is required to be regulated by
the state or it isn't regulated since it "doesn't exist" in a state of existence that the laws recognize.

To get around all that, I just say it can never be possessed because its existence is in question.
It may be that the privatekeys are the bitcoins and it is in a quantum state where they do exist
but don't exist, and can be possessed but are never possessed at the same time.

the issue is you are not taking analogies at face value of a public road. you try to push beyond face value by introducing variables and outside extra's.
a rogue radio station is the same as an estate created on open land on an island by those living on it without needing mainland government oversight.
<6000 residents say here are the basic design plans for a road
this is done by one group of residents accepting any width road below 16 lanes
this is done by one group of residents accepting any width road below 4 lanes
this is done by one group of residents accepting any width road below 2 lanes
this is done by one group of residents accepting any width road below 1 lanes
and some residents(pools) build it by realising that only 1 lane roads are acceptable to all residents.

if the road doesnt meet the specifications of all the residents, the residents destroy the road and ask another road that fits the plans to be built.
there is no central government making decisions for the residents. the residents themselves set their own rules and what results as acceptable is a marginal solution that all residents accept. and they themselves destroy what is not suitable

bitcoin has no central government. so a road is just a public road. build by the consensus and compromise of residents.
bt if you dont like the car analogy..
screw it. lets call it the sea. and they keys allow people to use a boat.
screw it. lets call it the air. and they keys allow people to use a plane.
screw it. lets call it space. and they keys allow people to use a spaceship.
either way possession of a key is different to ownership of a key.. or of vehicle or of transportation platform.

possession seems to be the closest term no matter what analogy is used

as for pirate radio.
this analogy is flawed. because the signal is being broadcast by one radio DJ who is choosing what music shall be transmitted. thus he governs it without his listeners having a say.
secondly possession and ownership are different things.

Yes, but that is how laws and rights are formulated and determined, by systems that already
exist and are based upon other systems. So when you use those examples, I personally have
a hard time visualizing it since I know they are controlled and maintained physically and legally,
and Bitcoin/bitcoin is virtual and not regulated. So we are using regulated physical systems to explain
unregulated non-physical system to point to why they are a form of possession.


To me, that sounds like an example of what the blockchain is like.



I understand what you are saying, my point is that the car example and these other ones are
not self evident to prove possession. So from my perspective, I still question whether anyone can
actually possess bitcoins, since an example does not exist that properly fits to the particular
circumstances of Bitcoin.

If bitcoin is determined to be a possession, it must be regulated.
I think since it is not already regulated, that proves it can't be a possession.
If governments figure out a way to regulate Bitcoin/bitcoin itself, then I will say it is indeed a possession.



The pirate radio example may be flawed since I haven't given it much thought and just made it up.
My point is that I personally need something that can be comparable to Bitcoin/bitcoin.
Roads and Cars can be used with any example for anything.
Since Bitcoin is "special" it needs a more "special" example to determine if it is a true possession.

If the bitcoins are only representations of ledger entries within the blockchain system,
can those bitcoins be MY possession eventhough they are still within the blockchain system?
In theory, the blockchain still possesses them and the privatekey allows you to change
the position of the possession within itself. if you could take the bitcoins out of the blockchain
and carry them around or whatever, I would have an easier time saying they are a type of possession.

Of course, I could be over thinking this too much.

possession does not mean it has to be physically in your hand.
EG if it did then perves can get away with crimes by saying the gross images were not in their hand so they did not possess the images.
the perve has to however prove he had no access to gross images, or was not the only one with access. to prove he had no/reasonable doubt of possession.

possession is just who has access.

ownership is registered and provable deservingness to hinder others from having trying to claim free usage. but still even being an owner. does not stop others possessing it morally or immorally.
EG. a lawnmower in a garage. a receipt proves who owns it and deserves it back. but only the person with the key to the garage possesses it.
possession does not prove ownership. and ownership does not prove possession.

no one has the lawnmower/coin outright. as that requires debate. but only those with a key with access to move the lawnmower/coin has possession. even if that lawnmower is locked up in a storage locker 200 miles away and that storage locker can be burned down at any time.

I am aware of that. My point was that if you could take it from the blockchain,
it would be easier for me to recognize it as a type of possession. Since it never
leaves the blockchain, the bitcoins are in actuality the blockchain itself, they are
the same entity, there is only one. So if that is true, would you argue that
you possess the blockchain as well (without maintaining the full ledger on a harddrive)?



Yes, but that only applies to physical things. Does that apply to the virtual?
If possession is just access in this case, then we all possess the blockchain as well.



Possession does not prove ownership, but ownership can prove possession.
That is how possession works legally. There can not be possession without an owner somewhere in the world.
Possession exists because there is a transference from the owner, whether authorized or not.

The blockchain issues the coins to the miners by transference, thus a form of possession.
(The blockchain can never grant ownership of itself, so only possession can apply.)
But the coins never leave the blockchain, thus no actual transference occurred.
All that seems to have occurred is the transfer of a control right, while possession remains
in the hands of the blockchain. When you transfer money within a bank, possession still
is with the bank, but the balance control is attributed to you. If you take that money out
from the bank, you now truly possess that money. (but the money is still owned by the gov.)


Otherwise if you are correct, we not only possess the bitcoins within an address,
but also the whole blockchain itself, since they are one entity. For example, your money
can go to different banks and banking systems, but bitcoins must stay within the bitcoin blockchain.
This is a fact and is due to bitcoin and its blockchain being the same single entity.

I think Legal or illegal is does not matter. You still can use your bitcoin anytime although isp was blocked bitcoin. I agree that bitcoin is private property of the owner. The owner have a freedom of what for they use bitcoin. Although goverment,isp or satoshi banned bitcoin I think it would not stop the bitcoin owner to use their bitcoin.  Yes bitcoin is have so many advantage that realy amazing.

since the bitcoin in our wallet is use by us and we can spent it in any ways but still in my opinion it is not our private property because still bitcoin are not in the hand of bitcoiner he can handle it only through internet data exchange .
but here it would be complicated to refer bitcoin as a private property .

ofcourse the bitcoin should be considered as the private property because the owner can easily handle his bitcoin with oqn freedom , he can send and Receive through own descion , so it is not bad to say that  bitcoin is a private property .