Bitcoin Forum

Could there be a law on stolen bitcoins? What if there would be a law punishing those who steal bitcoins and those people behind scam sites? And if so, is it necessary to have such law? I'm just wondering, if there would be such law about stolen bitcoins, it could be a big relief to us bitcoin users. But then, there are so many questions and issues that goes with this ideal that makes me skeptical about it.  ??? :-\

 Theft is illegal in every country on this earth.  Where are you from?  ??? :-\

I'm just talking about bitcoins here. A Law On Bitcoins Stealing. Not on theft as general term. By the way, i'm from earth  ;)

It is illegal but even we have the law stolent bitcoins it is impossible to trace those thieves since bitcoin is anonymous and you can use bitcoin mixer to be anonymous your transaction and done you are far to  caught by NBI or police..
And there is a law even in bitcoin there should be a laws and punishment for those thief's

If stealing bitcoin become a crime, it would fall on "theft" and there is a law against it, but since bitcoin is not recognized by the government as a money and its property, therefore they won't care about it...  It could just be reported as a cyber crime, and piled on the desktop and sometimes not seriously being act upon by authorities...

I think this article could atleast give you an idea about what I am saying;

http://gizmodo.com/as-punishment-for-stealing-bitcoin-man-must-teach-poli-1784285875 , just look for the judge's statement about bitcoin...  :)

No, there can be no law(s) on stolen bitcoins.
There are too many factors that need to be taken into account that the average legal system can
not determine. For example, there needs to be a mechanism to prove you still don't have the "stolen" coins.

That's so far from the real implementation. From your statement, it's mean it's get regulated by the government. I just concerning with what would have happened in reality.  
You can try for sending you statement totally for your government.
Even the Bitcoin are not get official legalisation by the government and forget it.

I think you have a good point here sir. There is no need for legislation it to become a law.  Also, as you pointed it is also falls under cybercrime and other digital or electronic fraud. But maybe there are clarifications on theses on the boundaries in between.

Laws come from legislation.
For there to be a law that defines bitcoin and what constitutes it's theft, there needs to be clarification and legislation.
For bitcoin to fall into either cybercrime or digital/electronic fraud, there will need to be additions to those laws.

I don't think so that there is already a law for each country that is covering the case of stealing of bitcoins. Even though stealing is illegal and crime.

But still there is no law for it and I think that will be long time before a law will be pass and consider that they will honor bitcoin.

And as of now, it is really sad that if you will be a victim of stealers, you can't do something about it.

What is really sad is that Bitcoin was designed so that there is nothing you can do and you don't know that.
That was the whole point and the reason why Bitcoin works and is not currently regulated.

If you could get your coins back or "do something about it" then there is no point in using bitcoin.
If you want the ability to do something if theft or accident, why aren't you using paypal?

An item doesn't have to be regulated in order to report it stolen!  Where in the world do you guys come up with this shit?!


Ex-U.S. agent gets over six years for bitcoin theft in Silk Road probe (http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-bitcoin-silkroad-idUSKCN0SD2IA20151019)

Wait..... can it be stolen? I mean, except if someone was giving his private authentication like password and identifier (might as well the 2fa) (which leads to a conclusion that he gave permission to the thief to get in) I read somewhere that it is near impossible to crack the security mechanism of trusted wallet. Like we need to be immortal first or something like that.

Stealing requires ownership, Bitcoin network grants no legal ownership rights.

---

He didn't get in trouble for "stealing bitcoins", that is a BS headline for lay people.
He broke many crimes unrelated to bitcoin and violated certain regulations required as a federal agent.
He was not charged with "theft of property" aka stolen bitcoins, because there is no such law.

Almost all things are regulated under law, whether you are aware of it or not.
Currently, bitcoin is not regulated and as such, there are no laws that determine a users rights.

I think his case is not just stealing bitcoin, it says there that "extortion, money laundering and obstruction of justice" - It's not clear to me which one gets him a 87 months in jail...I am not yet around to bitcoin when it happened I think, I am not sure if he stole the "evidence"  after seizing  the silkroad and investigating it or the bitcoin in silkroad when it was still operating...  :)

It seems that it is high time to update our law. Because if stealing bitcoins can't be considered crime according to standard penal code then I find it totally unfair.
At first internet piracy wasn't crime either - you haven't been stealing anything - making a copy is not crime - and then we got copyright infringement laws...
We need something like that with cryptocurrency ASAP.

Couldn't really be used to do anything though, unless you are able to track down someone who owns a wallet though some way there isn't any real way for anyone to directly track and figure out who someone is. Laws can exist to say that people can't steal Bitcoin, but in reality nothing would really change and things would stay the same.

First of all, you can take someone to Court for stealing your coins and each judge will give a different opinion.
Some will find it theft, others will not. It all depends on what Judge you get, since there is no uniform law.

Second, you don't understand what "updating our law" would do.
Bitcoin was designed as a system to exist outside the control of governments and laws.
That is the reasons why Satoshi designed the network the way he did. It wasn't just for shits.
The system does not grant the users, miners, or developers any rights and it is use at your own risk.

So, for governments to create laws about bitcoin and what it is and how it works and when theft
and ownership exists, they will need to have regulative ability and direct control within and over
the network. That is a direct violation of the Bitcoin network, Satoshi's intent, and the social contract.
That would make each developer legally responsible and liable to thefts, failures, bug and etc. That
would also make users obligated to register each address to their personal governmental ID. Miners
and node operator will also need to register with governmental agencies. And so on and so forth.

If you want the governments to directly determine theft and such, you are advocating Bitcoins destruction.
If you want laws for bitcoin or that "help" bitcoin, be careful what you wish for, because it is poison.

How would there be a law? Bitcoin are not regocnized by countries. The only law you could apply is cyber crime. You could say your information was stolen and could add btc to the list. Otherwise no law for btc

That is the saddest thing about bitcoin and the countries are even thinking that it is an illegal way of transacting underground.
Not knowing that this is a very good way to support our financial needs, so don't hope if your bitcoins are stolen.
You will just cry and can't do something about it. Just like what happened to bitfinex, but they are different case.

AgentofCoin, I understand what you are saying there. Bitcoin is currently grey area of economy and creating laws imposes control over bitcoin.
And I agree that is not something we would necessarily want. But we need to have some kind of customer protection - not control.
As you said - now, you can go to court and every judge could have different opinion. I want these opinions to be standardized - theft is a theft.

He certainly did get charged and plead guilty for stealing Bitcoin.  Only it wasn't simply stealing, it was extortion!

 Carl Mark Force plead guilty on three counts.  The third count was Extortion under color of official right (which makes it worse), in violation of 18 U.S. Code § 1951 which states:

(a)   Whoever in any way or degree obstructs, delays, or affects commerce or the movement of any article or commodity in commerce, by robbery or extortion or attempts or conspires so to do, or commits or threatens physical violence to any person or property in furtherance of a plan or purpose to do anything in violation of this section shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.

(b)  As used in this section—
(1)   The term “robbery” means the unlawful taking or obtaining of personal property from the person or in the presence of another, against his will, by means of actual or threatened force, or violence, or fear of injury, immediate or future, to his person or property, or property in his custody or possession, or the person or property of a relative or member of his family or of anyone in his company at the time of the taking or obtaining.

(2)   The term “extortion” means the obtaining of property from another, with his consent, induced by wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence, or fear, or under color of official right.

(3)   The term “commerce” means commerce within the District of Columbia, or any Territory or Possession of the United States; all commerce between any point in a State, Territory, Possession, or the District of Columbia and any point outside thereof; all commerce between points within the same State through any place outside such State; and all other commerce over which the United States has jurisdiction.


 Bitcoin is property.  Bitcoin is money.  Taking it from the owner without consent is theft.  Taking it from the owner with threats of harm is extortion.  The laws required to protect your property are already on the books - there needn't be a specific Bitcoin law. 


 In Canada, laws pertaining to theft are very broad:

 Section 322(1) of the Criminal Code

322. (1) Every one commits theft who fraudulently and without colour of right takes, or fraudulently and without colour of right converts to his/her use or to the use of another person, anything, whether animate or inanimate, with intent
(a) to deprive, temporarily or absolutely, the owner of it, or a person who has a special property or interest in it, of the thing or of his property or interest in it;(b) to pledge it or deposit it as security;(c) to part with it under a condition with respect to its return that the person who parts with it may be unable to perform; or(d) to deal with it in such a manner that it cannot be restored in the condition in which it was at the time it was taken or converted.[6]

 Bitcoin is covered.

Understandable, but just for example as to why even consumer protection is dangerous,
take a look at the New York BitLicense. It was originally supposed to help bitcoin users from
being scammed and grant them certain protections from and with exchanges and etc.

All that it really did was pushed bitcoin businesses out of New York, made the rules and regulations
more strict, and made the licenses almost impossible to get, thus creating a "control" over bitcoin in NY.
At the end of the day, a clarification of regulation of bitcoin in order to "protect the bitcoin users" turned
into a mechanism to control, restrict, and prevent bitcoins growth in that area. With one strike, NY became
a no-go zone for bitcoin, even p2p Localbitcoin sales are "illegal" under the BitLicense.

So even though consumer protection are normally great and needed for most products, Bitcoin/bitcoin may
be the only system that currently exists where such regulation would cause the opposite of what most users
would probably desire.

theft is theft and it is punishable by law. and since you pay for bitcoin with your fiat money there must be some law about theft of bitcoin unless you are living in a lawless country.

No, that is not an official governmental determination.
He willingly pled guilty to those charges without contest, meaning the government didn't
have to prove whether a legal property was extorted. Obviously, the federal agent "extorted" the victim,
but that does not prove that the gain was a legal property, only that the victim was coerced with
threats to provide some form of compensation. "Extortion" is more about the act of threatening to get a gain.
Not whether that gain is a certain property type or not, that is irrelevant to the threat for gain.

There is no official judgment, ruling or law for any high court which determines bitcoin to be a
legal property. In fact, different agencies and different US Courts have determined that bitcoin is many
different things, sometimes out right contradicting other judgments and opinions.

Citing a single case where the defendant pled guilty without contest does not create official
governmental legislative determination of what bitcoin is and is not. It only applies in this case.

US money can not be owned and is not a property.
So if bitcoin is money and property, that would contradict US law.

If you think bitcoin is a property, what aspect is the part that you own?
If the bitcoins never leave the blockchain system, how do you own them?
If another user generates your private key by chance, does he own those coins too?
If the Bitcoin network disappeared tomorrow, where did your property go?

If your answer is so simple, why isn't there a clear understanding between agencies?

The Bitcoin system does not grant users any rights and is use at your own risk.
If the government wants to declare it a legal property type, they don't understand what Bitcoin and
the bitcoin blockchain is on a technical level. Ownership and property rights are virtual illusions here.

Yes, we can have such law to prevent any incidents of bitcoin theft but for that, there must be a law that recognises bitcoin. Right now bitcoin can be classified as a commodity, digital currency or computer software but still this conclusion is debatable on the ground of court. If the law is recognising bitcoin only then another law can prevent activities associated with it.

I haven't heard any law that protects us from thieves. Besides, who would do that and who would implement. Cyber police? I think it is hard to formulate one since bitcoin is not under the protection of the government. I think if that would happen, well, lets prepare, government will regulate bitcoin, which most of us might not like to happen.

    I cite a single case because to date there are not many cases involving virtual currencies (yet).  Burden of proof and proof are totally different concepts.  The determination were in the charges themselves.  If the prosecutor didn't feel those charges could have been proven, they would not have been levelled.  At the preliminary hearing, those charges would have been tossed out and ultimately Carl Mark Force would have given them the finger and walked away scot-free but he plead guilty (most likely) because of the overwhelming evidence against him and to get a lighter sentence.
 You don't have to accept that one single case anyway; the IRS - which is bureau of the US federal Department of the Treasury has already deemed that virtual currencies are property.  FINCEN another bureau of the Department of the Treasury has issued similar guidance and the director has said that virtual currencies are subject to the same rule as other currencies.  So if you really need a government definition of value in Bitcoin in order to make the determination of theft, there you have it.  Those are official US government determinations... but I maintain that none are needed to determine theft of bitcoins.

I would like a specific organization to have jurisdiction over all borders on a global scale, for Crypto < Cyber crimes > They should specifically target Cyber crimes, where Crypto currencies are involved. This could be a private organization, funded by the community, but still governed by the local law enforcement agencies.

They provide the skill set, to supply information about the crime that was committed < because local law enforcement do not have that skill set > Go to a Police station now, and report your stolen bitcoins, and they will not even know what a bitcoin is. This will just be a community driven < Info Police > 

There will probably be one sooner or later. For now Bitcoin might be awesome but this is the only problem with it: we don't have any laws protecting us. However, that would lead to more control over Bitcoin which isn't wanted by anyone. I, at least, want to remain anonymous.

That is not how the US legal system works, sometimes the federal prosecutors (and low level
prosecutors) will lay dozens of charges only to, after many months of trial and testimony, narrow
them down to the only ones they believe they could win. They have the right to add or subtract
charges in mid-case based upon the record made during the trial. Normally, they lay their so many
counts and stick with them, but they still reserve the right to amend them during the trial and not
bound to the original charges.

There is no doubt that the government had overwhelming evidence against him, they were
watching him in real time and letting him hang himself, was my understanding. But the fact
that he pled guilty does not mean that the extortion charge proves that bitcoin is a legal property.

I am aware of what the IRS says and their statement is only an advisory opinion. It is not an official
determination that is based on law and legislative definitions, it is only an opinion on how US citizen
should determine what bitcoin is for the purpose of paying taxes. So the IRS says that it is a property,
but only as far as it determines it as a taxable asset, otherwise for things like property rights and thefts
and etc, they don't really care and have no opinion or advice. There is no doubt that US Citizen should
pay any taxes on the profit from bitcoins at the time of selling them into fiat, but anything beyond the IRS
is speculative until those agencies provide their opinions or the legislators create laws that define and regulate
it.Also, and most interestingly, IRS has no way currently to audit your coins to determine if you are even
complying with their advisory opinion, so even if they say its property for tax purposes, they themselves
admit by omission that they can't force or determine if you have bitcoins or if you should pay taxes on them.
It is voluntary and in normal governmental legal determinations and laws, nothing is voluntary but mandatory.

In theory, if bitcoin is a property, it should be reported to the FBI and they should investigate each theft report
and provide the victim with the result of the investigation as well as information into any prosecutions since bitcoin
is a borderless, cross-state, international currency payment system. It would legally fall within in jurisdiction due
to the cross state nature in the US and how the Bitcoin network works, in general. My understating now is the FBI
doesn't care and tells users to report it to their local police departments, which is obviously going to go no where.
The FBI doesn't want to look into each bitcoin theft because they are already overloaded with thefts from federally
insured banking systems.

 I see you wrote more while I was typing (and making my lunch for work tomorrow).

What aspect do I own?
  The input, the amount of Bitcoin and the output signed by the private key of the input which is kept in your wallet and usable by you using your private key.
If they never leave the blockchain how do I own them?
  The blockchain is merely a ledger for tracking spends. You own them by virtue of the private key (and the record of transfer)
If another user generates your private key by chance, does he own those coins too?
  That will never happen.  It's possible but not probable.
If the Bitcoin network disappeared tomorrow, where did your property go?
 Failed investment. I could  write it off on my taxes as a capital loss
If your answer is so simple, why isn't there a clear understanding between agencies?
  I actually don't know this to be true... but how many agencies need to agree when bitcoin evidently has value? ~$700 USD per BTC at present

it can't be possible , there can not be a law when it comes to bitcoin . if you want bitcoin or stolen bitcoins to have a law then you are also saying that you want bitcoin to be controlled by law and the government which is not favorable for other bitcoin users .

 You make some very good points which I can't dispute.

That is only a ledger entry. The developers and software specifically grant no rights of ownership to anyone.
You can not own those coins since the blockchain never transfers ownership from itself. It always stays within
its own possession, that was the purpose of the system to prevent easy regulation. Your private key is only a
temporary control right, not a possession or ownership right.


The blockchain is not merely a ledger. The blockchain is the bitcoins themselves.
On a technical level they are the same entity. According to your logic, then your privatekey
by virtue grants ownership rights over the blockchain itself, but obviously you can not,
so thus you can't own the bitcoins at all. Technically ownership is illusionary in this system.
You probably only own the privatekey, whether there are coins in it or not.


But that doesn't answer the legal question of ownership rights.
Legal ownership is normally determined by third party registration agencies.
So, if two people have the same control of bitcoins within the an address, who is the legal owner?
The blockchain doesn't care, they both control. That is the Bitcoin system.
The first to move, is the next temporary controller.


True, but that is only to the IRS and such tax agencies.
If there was no ability to "write off the loss", such as prior to 2013,
then your property would just be gone because you never truly owned or possessed it.
You would have only had a temporary control, that fell into the abyss.

By your view point, it seems you would prefer regulation since it would allow you to be bailed out from
your own actions. For example, it would allow you and other to not fully lose from your bad choices, interestingly
in opposition of the very reason why Satoshi created Bitcoin in the first place, to prevent bailouts and manipulation
of financial and insurance systems. I think Satoshi created the system as is, and not allow the granting of rights, so
that the Bitcoin system COULD survive into the future. If it must conform to the laws, it would die from having no
novel purpose or reason for existence. Its true value comes from not being directly regulatable or legal property.


Value is irrelevant to me here, I only care about the legal aspects.
All agencies disagree on what bitcoin is because there is no official definition on what it is.
Each agency will govern bitcoin as they see fit until there is a legislative decision and law.


Ultimately, I may be very easily proven wrong in a few months to years when laws are passed or whatever,
but I think that if that day comes, it will be a marker in Bitcoin history of when things began to go backwards
and fall apart as opposed to when things "went to the moon" and "bitcoin wins". I believe that the world has to
conform to Bitcoin and not the other way around. If we do ultimately conform to governmental regulations, I think
personally I could realistically say that Bitcoin has failed in what one of its original goals was.

If Bitcoin users are granted rights by governments, there will be many resulting legal issues with the system.
Clean and Dirty coins will likely be the first attack from these new regulations.

I think if bitcoin become more famous and there are many people who use it, law for stolen bitcoin will be there because activity of theft is illegal on every countries and it is must there are rules about it although will make other problem is like bitcoin users is not becoming anonymous because they must give their indentity.

Already bitcoin is decentralized, so initiation of such laws into stolen bitcoin issues is really not possible. What most users quoted is a different scenario with silk road probe. Its our own responsibility to keep our bitcoin much safer.

Imposing  and  making  law on that  would   be  possible  but   the  question  is  they would really have a hard time to trace  those   thiefs for sure  because  of bitcoins  anonymity  and  also  making law  with this  seems  impossible  because  bitcoin isnt regulated   at all  therefore  not all countries  would  really consider  this   thats why   scammers out there  are  hard to find  because there are no  laws  who  haunts them down.

Stolen bitcoins might have a law? sadly no but the thing there is that stealing something to whatever it is, will always be considered as a disobeying law which only means that it is punishable by law. The only problem if bitcoin was being involved it is really hard to trace that certain person who stole your bitcoin(which is a property).

Interesting topic.
Well at the beginning bitcoin designed decentralized which it's not covered by government and law. This is impossible to reporting to cybercrime police if your coin stolen, instead it can be a boomerang if your country doesn't allow bitcoin activity.

But the question is how there's country who make it legal for bitcoin so, we can report it to the police if we got stolen our bitcoin?

Laws already exist in majority of the countries for stealing of money or something equivalent to money. Do you remember the time when the dirty cops stole Bitcoins from the Silk Road case? They were caught and made to pay for it. Even last month a 34 year old hacker Michael Richo was caught for stealing Bitcoins by phishing users and they did recover a large sum of money accounted upto 6 figures. So, infact if you've ever been stolen from make sure you have enough security measures and monitoring tools installed before hand on where you have your Bitcoins so that it becomes easier for the cops to help you track them.

Well it wll be nice if our government allows us to report to some authorized persons if our bitcoins are stolen. But the thing is bitcoin is anonymous it will be hard to track someone plus the government doesn't even recognized bitcoin, and  in some countries bitcoins are even banned.  There are many hurdles to overcome before something like this happens.  

In some cases this happens when some huge amount of btcs are stolen.  I have seen/read some articles in thr past like that.

sadly this depends on the country that you live in!

this may sound a bit strange but it is true, in some countries they may even tell you that you shouldn't have used bitcoin in first place and prosecute yourself because of using bitcoin in first place.

well if you're living in a region which already regulate bitcoin,i guess there must be such a rule thatprotect bitcoin users against criminality,and especially if government already taxed those bitcoin users,then protection for a bitcoin users is a must and it could be considered as using usual currency so normal law will be used

It would be good if there would be similar laws but bitcoin is out from this thing and that's the main reason why people are using bitcoin for illegal activities. There is always law to catch thief but reality about bitcoin is different, it's nearly impossible to catch thief. Think about facts which happend this summer, hashocean stole huge amount of bitcoins, bitfinex was hacked and also huge amount of bitcoin was stolen from them, what happened? There is nothing news about thiefs, they stole money and they live whatever they want.

It is never yet implemented and we have not read any case involving Bitcoin theft,the country that will implement this,should have a complete knowledge on how bitcoin works and that country is actually using bitcoin as one of their currency,I doubt if this will happen.

I don't tink that it would happen since there's no one controll bitcoin, however if there a law to protect us from thief bitcoin must be centralized maybe by the goverment. as long as bitcoin is decentralized Its your own responsibility to keep your bitcoin safe.
Though holding bitcoin and transaction with them is illegal in my country thus there's no one help you when you lose your bitcoin.

That's like asking if there are laws against sending unsolicited spam emails. Yes. There are lots of different laws in lots of different countries. But in terms of having some law on the Blockchain somehow (or whatever your idea is) it's not going to happen.

You can create as many laws as you want, but at the end of the day, the protocol doesn't care.... if someone gets away with it, that's it, it's the end of your bitcoins, and the thefts will never be caught. This does not mean that there shouldn't be laws, there should be laws and people like Karpeles are to be held responsible for the scams, but some people will get away with it since they will never be caught.

i really wish there are this kind of this law, so the scammers will learned their lesson, but it won't happen, how can we track the scammer or the thief if all of the identity is hidden, and based of what kind of law that a theft or bitcoin criminal can be sentenced? I think it's too complicated to becoming true eventhough deep inside i wish it could happen

Different countires have different laws against theft.
So technically spoken there is a law aginst stealing btc.
The question is which one to use. The law of the country where the thief is, or the one where the victim lives.
Of course that would all imply to catch the thief, and that is not going to happen in most cases.
If you would want a global law agains bitcoin theft, I think we would have to create a world government first.

There is a law on stolen bitcoins. We do have theft and cybercrime law for that and I think most countries have those laws. The main problem that you'll have is the proof that he actually stole your bitcoin and that he is actually the one that stole your coins. I've seen people on the news getting in jail because they scam someone online so I think it's also possible to do when the theft happens in bitcoins.

Maybe in the future there can be a law on it but right now there will be no law on it and its also difficult because a lot of of countries than need to work worldwide with each other too.

aren't bitcoin that are stolen, tainted(or what was the correct term) and they also lose value, because they are sold at different rate on the market, and they are in this way the primarily cause of the no-good fungibility of bitcoin?

I think its very hard to bring law for this because we cannot recognize thief who is this and where from if we can do then theft is illegal in all over world and the can go in prison for this without any problem but its need some good and hard work to recognize this all 

Stealing is a crime on all country in the world. There are no country thay has no anti theft law. But it is hard find the suspect that stole your bitcoin cause it is fully anonymously used. It depends if the suspect is a person you know and he stole your private key. And you have evidence to make your accusation powerful

I don't think so because bitcoin doesn't belong to anybody or any government and it's not controlled by anyone so it's tricky to give such a law on bitcoin. Moreover, it's get harder to track down scam sites when they die or to find out who steal bitcoin because there will be no traces. Therefore, having laws on bitcoin would be worthless.

I don't think there is any specific law that is limited or about bitcoin and stealing it in any country, at least there is none where I live. but stealing bitcoin or getting scammed out of your coins may fall under some different category which then will be subjected to some law.
for example if it was a hack, then it is a hack and there are so many laws about hack and stealing something that way. if it was a scam then it can be categorized differently and so on.

Nobody needs a special law for Bitcoin theft, because stealing property is illegal in every country. The same applies to fraud. I don't know where you stuck your head the last years, but there are already convicted offenders, who participated in Bitcoin scams / embezzlements. Just to name the two best known: Trendon Shavers and Mark Karpeles.

Even if there were legal loopholes, additional laws would not improve the situation regarding Bitcoin scams. Offenders already know that their activity is illegal, therefore they generally take great care in concealing their identities and hiding their tracks. So prosecution is difficult.

The main problem in my opinion are however the people who - out of pure greed or naivety - believe in totally unrealistic high-yield "investments" and throw Bitcoin at every scammer without properly researching the background of an offer.

ya.ya.yo!

i do not honestly expect there to exist any law on this or i do t want any law to exist because if there will exist any law then it can cause harms not only to the scammers but also some innocense. right now people himself are responsible for whatever actions they have taken into

You either have freedom or you have nothing and that is pretty much how bitcoin works. You start making rules to track or attack people with nefarious ideas/plans and you kill bitcoin in the process. May not be right away but a gradual decline would for sure happen as the markets reflect the change.

yes i also think so that there is still no law implemeted, and i think the main reason is that bitcoin is still not consider as legal currency by any country therefore it is very difficult that any government has yet implement any law for stolen bitcoins as the government has no concern with stolen bitcoins.

By any means, if an exchange site is a registered company, meaning personal infos of the owners and it's staff are being presented to the government then they are facing the laws under money regulation of a certain country and they have to comply with it. Obviously if they will turned to a fraud one, authorities will seek them.

But you know majority of people that preferred bitcoin because of that freedom thing must take care of their coins by themselves and don't blame anyone why it got steal. They want a full extent of freedom of using bitcoin outside the government premises but asking for a law about stolen coins? It doesn't make sense since for government to truly pass a law about stolen coins, bitcoin must be regulated first which others don't like. They must deal with it.

Bitcoin, the Internet currency beloved by computer scientists, libertarians, and criminals, is no longer invulnerable. As recently as 3 years ago, it seemed that anyone could buy or sell anything with Bitcoin and never be tracked, let alone busted if they broke the law. “It’s totally anonymous,” was how one commenter put it in Bitcoin's forums in June 2013. “The FBI does not have a prayer of a chance of finding out who is who.”


The FBI and other law enforcement begged to differ. Ross Ulbricht, the 31-year-old American who created Silk Road, a Bitcoin market facilitating the sale of $1 billion in illegal drugs, was sentenced to life in prison in February 2015. In March, the assets of 28-year-old Czech national Tomáš Jiříkovský were seized; he’s suspected of laundering $40 million in stolen Bitcoins. Two more fell in September 2015: 33-year-old American Trendon Shavers pleaded guilty to running a $150 million Ponzi scheme—the first Bitcoin securities fraud case—and 30-year-old Frenchman Mark Karpelès was arrested and charged with fraud and embezzlement of $390 million from the now shuttered Bitcoin currency exchange Mt. Gox.


The majority of Bitcoin users are law-abiding people motivated by privacy concerns or just curiosity. But Bitcoin’s anonymity is also a powerful tool for financing crime: The virtual money can keep shady transactions secret. The paradox of cryptocurrency is that its associated data create a forensic trail that can suddenly make your entire financial history public information.

I see, I research too, about bitcoin regulations and law. And found something interesting:
https://coincheck.com/en/blog/1226
https://news.bitcoin.com/japan-passes-law-regulation-bitcoin/
Anyway if bitcoin have a regulations from all country, maybe more comfortable to do bitcoin activity, unless maybe corrupt country.

Stealing bitcoins is like stealing fiat money.

There`s no need of a law regarding bitcoin theft.

If there was such law,this won`t stop bitcoin scammers.

I don't think that can be a law. Nobody can't use the lost bitcoins, so I don't think that someone can put law on the stolen ones. And how can we know which bitcoins are stolen and how someone can prove it?

As Bitcoin is an anonymous currency, I think the law can't help with that. We already saw here a lot of scammers and hackers stealling bitcoins and nothing happened to them. Here on forum they can be negatived and banned, but on the real world nothing happen to them.

Althought they are banned from bitcointalk forum they can continue creating methods and schemes to steal peopleon the internet. That is disadvantage of using bitcoins.

Firstly, bitcoin theft is impossible to trace. Secondly, stealing someones elses money is illegal anywhere in the world (duh lol). But since bitcoin has no owner, thus no one controls it - private or goverments, theres no one to enforce those laws. Even if there were laws, for which country would this law apply??

well if you can track down those bitcoin thievies then your are welcome to take actions on them like polic complains or etc but i do not find it save that fbi will search the whole network just to find your guy remember everyone needs privacy

btc theft is not impossible to trace, possible but extremely difficult. However on the other hand, the owner of kickass got arrest because he use legal money to buy on app store.

Stealing of anything is illegal and this is the crime everywhere in the world. There is no need for separate law to protect just Bitcoin. And no country would make such law.
The difference and also the problem with stealing Bitcoins compared with stealing fiat is the greater anonimity of Bitcoin transactions so it's much harder to trace them.

If the guy steal a lot of money, one day he will have to spend it in somewhere or trade for fiat on an exchange, so in this way you can find the guy...
On the other side he can buy some anonymous altcoin and make the things more hard.

the current system of law covers theft by anything physical and digital..

the problem..
identifying the culprit.

no law can remedy this, because no scammer would follow the law by identifying himself in the first place.

in short. if you dont want to get scammed dont use shady blackmarket sites. dont hand funds to people you dont know enough about to slap them with a wet fish if they wrong you.

The problem is that it is very hard to catch those that steal bitcoins because of the anonymity. In many cases the thief is most likely in another country which makes it even harder to track.

Even if the authority catches those people who steal bitcoin, the problem is, there is no one owns bitcoin so basically you cannot file a complaint of thief because you don't have a proof of ownership over that bitcoin.  Sad but it is true that people who stole lots of bitcoin had gone out of prison because of this issue.

Bro There are Already Some Laws Created For this Type Of Crimes Like Steal Bitcoin From a Wallet Or A Person Scammed Many Bitcoins From Others Then He Can be Punished For that If He Caught By any country.....
Because Theft and Scamming People is illegal in every Country......

I am not sure, becouse no body know who stoled the bitcoin, in Exception if there is something like history of transaction that enclosed in bitcoin. But this idea just make bitcoin anonimity no more. But I still support if there are some people are country that give punishment to scammer or any people who do ing cyber crime. I hope all of country believe in bitcoin and support it. It is will good if country support bitcoin.investment.

There are laws in which this falls under, it is called theft and fraud.  The issue is that there are not enough information about the Bitcoin and not enough funds to help prevent bitcoin from being stolen.  As soon as a enforcement agency comes into play, then there will be issues and problems for these thieves.

I do not think there is a law in stolen bitcoin yet since bitcoin is not government regulated there is no policy approved by the law. And also it is hard to trace who are the one liable in staling bitcoin.

The authorities will have a hard time finding who stole your bitcoins even Bitfinex does not know who stole its $67M in bitcoins.

Bitcoin mixing is quite anonymous and transactions cannot be reversed.

So what law are you going to make against that?

This is unfortunately true. If you report that you have been hacked, or perhaps that someone potentially has stolen your coins, there is no way the police department will know how to deal with it. They will just put it in their system, and that's it. Nothing will be done to actually have it worked out, or at least looked into.


They know very well where these coins have gone... But that's another story.


What mostly happens with things that are very difficult to sort out, is that they get banned all the way. That's the easiest and least time consuming option for them to deal with it. Just look at the policitians, police departments, etc, they have a huge tech related gap that is very difficult for them to fill. It's a matter of educating your own people, but that costs money....

I guess if the thief didn't put the coins in a bitcoin mixer first, it would be possible for you to track him and put him in jail. Even so, it's still hard to track someone online. In the history of bitcoin, there are big companies that have the money to hire an internet investigator or something to find who hacked their website but they were never able to put the hackers in jail. But I guess not all of those companies actually got hacked. Maybe there's some inside job that happened.

One of the biggest adventages on bitcoin that nobody has the ability to reverse a transaction(unless the community agrees on doing a fork which is less likely to happen), which makes selling really easy and safe,but also makes buying risky ,as you wont be able to cancel the transaction if you need to.

We don't need a law on this because we have enough laws protecting the citizens from thievery. However, there can be a big problem if we implement the law on the use and misuse of Bitcoin because of the decentralized nature of this currency. I am sure that soon there can be solution on this regard and hope that it can be available for all of us. In the meantime, just be careful in your daily transactions involving Bitcoins.

I believe almost every country now having regulations against cyber crime so bitcoin by default will fall within that category to punish them. Stealing digital or intellectual property is already an offense in most of the countries.

Never think bitcoin as an alien thing or just a free thing. It is just a money, so we need to give all the importance we are giving to fiats. Definitely, we must have regulations for punishing a bitcoin scammer/hacker.

There is already laws about theft, the problem is proving it or tracing the transactions.  plus the old quote also stands here:  if you dont own and secure the private keys then you dont own the bitcoin..... blunt but true  :o

I already believe there's law in evry country about stealing other peoples stuff... just be smart and don't invest anything in some dodgy websites that offer services that are just too good to be true.

Really? That was nice. Before there wasn't that's why PONZI's are scattered everywhere last time. Even the biggest company became scam and no one claims back their stolen investment. And we cannot file a case to them because bitcoin is not recognized by the government. It is our main problem when transacting to someone. But, its a good thing a law has been passed to prevent these things and we are not protected to those scammers. Its a great update in Bitcoin.

If there'll be a law for bitcoin then the government has control over bitcoin. We know that bitcoin is decentralized and no one has control on it, so I don't think there'll be a law fir bitcoin. Besides, tracing bitcoin is hard to do, nearly impossible, because it's anonymity.

apparently there has been no law that we could see being enforced about theft of bitcoin because if there were they should have started with all those bitcoin hacks and those were millions of dollars worth of bitcoin from big businesses like bitfinex for example, but we never see anybody get caught!

There is a law, not just for bitcoins but fr every kind of theft, just it's kind of harder to track someone down if they're using btc.

How will you find those who stoled?

Laws already exist in majority of the countries for stealing of money or something equivalent to money.  But the thing is bitcoin is anonymous it will be hard to track someone plus the government doesn't even recognized bitcoin, and  in some countries bitcoins are even banned.  There are many hurdles to overcome before something like this happens. 

There is no way to get the scammer when he makes all hiden, even some companies, opened for scam purposes, the max you will get is the owner going jail, and your coins will be lost forever.

could someday there will be a law about bitcoin. because it would be very useful, people will be more confident and comfortable in using bitcoin more often.

I think there are none because bitcoin i think is not covered of government laws. But stealing is illegal but i dont know if it can be apply for bitcoin. Also many hackers attacked exchange sites but cannot be trace nor identified. I have not also seen anyone punished by stealing because no one gets caught.

As far as I know there is already a law and it's the same that would apply to stolen regular money. It's not like the police doesn't care that you lose your bitcoin, but the thing is, it's too hard to try to trace them back that is a bit of a waste of time. If you lose your bitcoin it's better to start trying to assume that they are gone and they are not coming back. Most people never recover them after getting stolen.

As many people have said, the criminal law pertaining to theft in most countries will cover Bitcoin, since any theft of tangible and/or intangible items is sanctionable. The only worry comes with those jurisdictions who have an outdated definition of theft, particularly those which adhere to the continental definition of theft whereby the thief would have to physically move the location of the object to a different location than that last set by the owner. That definition would not only mean theft of Bitcoin cannot be prosecuted against, but also any theft of intangible property.

Leaving that aside, it is immaterial as to whether Bitcoin is considered as a property or a currency - currency as a form of money is still considered as property for the purpose of determining the crime of theft. Bank notes, coins can be stolen, same as any other property.

Keep in mind that theft of Bitcoin can also be prosecuted as a computer misuse crime, unless it's an actual paper wallet which is stolen for example. That in itself is a separate argument since some might say it was the paper which was stolen and not the private key itself.

I think stealing bitcoin also come under crime as bitcoin is also just like your currency/cash but main problem to file charge against the one who stole is due to anonymity bitcoin transactions have. So hard for even law/government to track down the real guy who is behind this crime.

It will take more years before it is implemented ,when bitcoin awareness is well established and there are laws governing bitcoin on every country ..

Stealing bitcoin can be considered cyber crime and even asking ransome in bitcoin is also cyber crime but implementing this law depends upon how good is your countries government and investigation force in finding the one who is envolved in stealing as well as tracking bitcoin may need lots of time as well as lots of sophisticated tools and computer powers.

Whether it's Bitcoin that gets stolen or the equivalent in fiat, it shouldn't matter as money is money.

In that aspect you are breaking the law, and thus should receive the same treatment as you would have stolen solely fiat money or gold for example.

However, the current old fashion law enforcements don't even know how to deal with internet related scams.

So how can we expect them to deal with something (Bitcoin in this case) that they have never heard of? It's difficult. They probably won't even take it serious.

It would  be still useless  even  if   certain country would  implement  such  laws  because   tracing  up those  coins seems too  impossible. It may sounds for  us  to be a crime hence  we are talking about  stolen bitcoins  but  we  cant really do  anything   about  it   because theres  no such law   that would  haunt them  down because  government  doesn't  legalize  bitcoin  anyway.

Yeah being stolen bitcoin seems to be quite common to bitcoin users but yet there are still no laws can cover it. As bitcoin belongs to nobody and no government can control it, it's quite an impossible mission to put a laws on bitcoin stealing. Moreover, because there is no trace or evidence of each bitcoin transaction, it becomes even more tricky to stop this.

Though most of what you are saying is true, most legal systems have not determined bitcoin to
be a legal property type, like fiat, coins, collectables, and etc. It is easy to say that it is, since that would
be the obvious assumption since in normal legal systems everything can fall into some form of pre-existing law,
but the true legal issue arises where when does the new "owner" of those inputs take possession of those
coins within the blockchain system? Isn't the blockchain always the owner and possessor of the coins and
the blockchain only grants you a temporary control?

The legal question is, can bitcoin be a legal property if the value token never leaves the possession of the
blockchain system? If the Bitcoin blockchain itself does not care about who owns what nor can prove who
owns what nor will correct or reverse stolen bitcoins, would it be the correct legal theory to place bitcoins
within the normal standards for property, or should a new type/term and definition be created?

For example, maybe bitcoin is a virtual item or virtual good?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/oliverherzfeld/2012/12/04/what-is-the-legal-status-of-virtual-goods/#25b527a6be21 (http://www.forbes.com/sites/oliverherzfeld/2012/12/04/what-is-the-legal-status-of-virtual-goods/#25b527a6be21)
My understanding is Bitcoin is a free to participate experiment that can never grant users/miners/devs any rights or guarantees
and as such if the system fails or disappears, users have no legal right to take any enforceable action against anyone, including
the developers, since bitcoin was not intended to be a currency/asset that governmental laws would "protect" or "regulate".
When a user/miner/dev participates within the Bitcoin system, they waive any and all rights by default. If users do not agree
with automatically waving their rights when using this experimental system, then they should not participate within the bitcoin
blockchain, but only with bitcoin within regulated exchanges.

In the context of a virtual item, can it be a legally enforceable property that should fall under normal theft laws?
I don't think so, users are granted no rights by any human or governmental authority on-chain.

Bitcoin itself have no law and bitcoin is somewhat against government's law so how could we expect law on bitcoin scammer. Bitcoin it's all about scam and legit if you could find the right one then you will make millions and if yup get trapped in scammers world then you forget your money that's the reality of bitcoin and its decentralized nature. Hope now you could understand why we need centralization in money sector.

Since there is no rules and regulations in bitcoin and no hand of any single institute to control bitcoin so who would make law. But well if government wants then definitely they could but its decentralized and no law could be imposed. User have full freedom to use it

Since bitcoin is getting popular quite a sometime..the more it gets adopt..govt will try to make new laws and also they could pose somekind of tax,also laws may be implemented to protect the cryptocurrency

Who would come to control bitcoin. Obviously no one have that much free time and money to setup organization to control bitcoin. It was launched for freedom and they are taking the advantages of it. When bitcoin doesn't flow government rules and regulations so government also will not come to help in bitcoin related cases. And neither government could make any profit out of it unlike paper money which yields taxes.

A government will cover a person who is using bitcoins, for that bitcoin ecosystem need not to have a central authority. Bitcoin is a technology/application which must be binding within the regulations to the user who is using it.

So, obviously every country must be having strict law against bitcoin theft, because, a crime is done by a citizen but in a decentralized environment.

its nearly impossible for a normal human to track down the thieves until you have sone special knowledge on programming,networking and scrypting. i have sewn some users they can track transactions and can find fron where the txd was

In my own opinion. I believe law for stolen bitcoin is not yet existing. For me, as a responsible individual. We must be responsible enough in securing our Bitcoin wallets same with logins. When it comes to smart investing, make sure that we join legit investments, not investment scams. Before joining one, we must invest our time first in doing some research or do background checks. That way we can figure it out if its true or hoax. Again, we must ensure our safety, security for our Bitcoins.

Laws for stolen  bitcoin  does not  really exist at all and  no one  would  intend to  implement that. I do agree on your  opinion  regarding  on  handling  our bitcoin  , we must  be   responsible  on  our  bitcoin  holding and  we  must  be sure on any investments that we would made to avoid such scams or  loss of  money.  Background checks would be the  best  move and do  also search always for users  feedbacks.

Yes, there will be law on stolen bitcoin, if certain conditions are met and one of the conditions is that Bitcoin itself should be given its due place in law before talking about regulating its stealing because one cannot place something on nothing and until that is done, I guess stealing Bitcoin whether right or wrong is a matter of individual attitude to morality.

I too filed a case when my bitcoins were stolen but nothing was done as bitcoins are not considered legal. If there is a huge amount involved, there can be chances of such scammers being arrested else the chances are very less. It's mainly the persons who trade in bitcoins who suffer in the end while scammers easily escape.

If it is a website, there have been many instances where the website owner has been arrested for cheating users and there was a case on this forum too where details of those staff members were taken from theymos. There are less chances that such stolen bitcoins would be returned but yes, stealing is a crime whether is any currency.

I think they are not looking if it is just a little amount. But with higher transactions they are really looking into it. Just like what happened with Gox and Bitfinex but still there should be some reward that is why they are going to take it seriously.

Everywhere in this world, stealing is illegal even in bitcoin. They just don't respond to cases when it is bitcoin since it is not a legal currency just yet in the eye of the law. They will only pursue a bitcoin stealing case if it is very big like what happened in bitfinex. If it is little like what the ponzi schemes do, They won't even bother to pursue it in my opinion, they will just leave it be.

I agree we should have law on bitcoin but it set by government and for now bitcoin not an authorized currency, so nothing to do with it.
Even we have the law, so hard to track down the thief since bitcoin transaction made anonymous and hard to proof that your bitcoin has been stolen if your wallet been hacked.

 Can you post a redacted scan of the police report?
It would be interesting to see why nothing was done.  How were you informed that nothing would be done?

The question is how law to control Bitcoin, a stuff that couldn't be controlled? Even the law claims your ownership of the stolen Bitcoin, you can't still rollback the blockchain to get your Bitcoin back.

I highly doubt stealing Bitcoins would be the same as stealing cash, at least in my country. Mainly because not many people know what it is, and cops won't do anything if they are told to "search" for someone with the address x.

Bitcoin itself is illegal in some countries because it allows money laundering because there is no central agency to control the flow of money so who would come to make laws and bitcoin is almost anonymous so making will not work

actually as bitcoin is still not a legal currency therefore there is still no law for stolen bitcoin. but i am hopeful that when bitcoin will become a legal currency then there will certainly be a law for stolen bitcoin as we can see that in every state there is always law present for stealing some thing.

normally there is no law but what if tomorrow someone just popuped from somewhere and became a thieve catcher like plumbers in ben 10 cartoon series . i mean a special polic branch to punish the scammers and thieves in bitcoin network like we already have escrow system

Bitcoin doesn't have to be a legal currency. It's no surprise that when you steal something, that it is against the law. Bitcoin is money, so in that respect, you are stealing money. Not very difficult to realize, right? You'll either get to stay in a prison for a certain amount of time, or you'll get a heavy fine where you will also be forced to pay back the victim till the last satoshi.

Unless there will be some kind of regulations in cryptocurrency it won't really gets 100% acceptance from people, establishments and governments. Call someone irresponsible and reckless for losing cryptos either from wrong address, getting stolen, etc but it doesn't mean thieves and crooks get free passes.

If they can caught it can be in prison but honestly it is hard to trace those thieves if they are stole bitcoins by someone you can only get ip and there is assurance if he is in that place because we have also vpn that we can hide and change our location ip.
I hope that satoshi can added a new feature like knowing the real place of thieves so that we can report it easily to NBI.

This issue differ from country to other, I think where Bitcoin is regulated, there will be a law to protect Bitcoin users, if you read Bitcoin news, you should be heard about the scammer arrested by Dubai police in UAE.
https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/dubai-police-arrest-alleged-bitcoin-scammer-siphoned-100000-off-victims/

Yes it could, but it would only apply to certain countries. Because I think not all the countries would agree to it, and some may just don't care about it.
And I believe that it's pretty necessary to have that kind of law, but the thing is I don't like if the government interfered with Bitcoin. Because Bitcoin shouldn't be governed by them.

You can refer to bitcoin as a cryptocurrency or as a product, so it's an good, if someone steal it, for sure this guy can go to jail.

The question here is how the law work because every country have their own law and most of them don't care too much about digital crimes.

I think that Bitcoins can be considered has private property and as so they should be considered by the same laws that rule property. However in the future there should be a specific ruling related to digital assets theft

Yes it is possible and it will be if the governments approve bitcoin as a legal currency for their state and they create some laws for the regulation of bitcoin and that will be regulated in the country for the usage of bitcoin and it is definite that in that law stealing will be forbidden as it is just like other currencies so they will have a law on stolen bitcoins.

First we must understand that every nation has their own laws and not all countries may necessarily make same law on same subject.
Second for enacting any such international law about bitcoin, btc needs to be a mainstream currency in many countries or atleast half of total world population must use it.
Although there must be some legal safeguards for bitcoin users also but I dont think such a interference will come out without any compromise for bitcoin users.
Governments may make it compulsory to disclose your total bitcoin holding etc

I said, the police will be unable for arrest you for using bitcoin, and they just running according to from the everything are regulating by the constitution.

Something is outside from the constitution aren't can get caught by the police at this time. except some are violating the rules of constitution.

A law like that is completely unnecessary theft is illegal no matter the form or the method you use, the same can be said about scamming and any other criminal related activity.

Well you either have freedom or you have nothing and that is pretty much how bitcoin works in reality. You start making rules to track or attack people with your ideas and you kill bitcoin in the process. May not be right away but a gradual decline would for sure happen as the markets reflect the change. And no one cares to make law for bitcoin scammers.

Bitcoin is itself illegal in some country and still some countries are hoping to ban bitcoin so who would come to make law for bitcoin. When bitcoin is itself illegal(not in all country) so can there be any law on bitcoin scammers. Government doesn't care who losses money from bitcoin and who gains. It really out of questions to make law on bitcoin and bitcoin scammers

 It seems you don't know the purpose of the Constitution of the United States of America.  You should do some research.

If there are still some flaws and there are for sure related to legislation regarding cryprocurrencies in future. It is just beginning hardly Bitcoin came under some some rules and regulations. There will be strict laws in future and offenders will be treated same as they of now if they steal money of someone. There is much to be done about Bitcoin and digital currencies by governments.

It would be nice to get the  cyber criminals behind bars as the give bitcoin a bad name....but am sure if there is a money trail and possibly have something like a blockchain which shows addresses having  stole funds....mixing providers would certainly refuse such transactions

yes that is the main problem as bitcoin is not a legal currency and still not a single country consider it as legal therefore there is no law for stole bitcoin, we have a very clear example of bitfinex, what kind of step take against the hacker i think still in useless.

Hackers with brains won't make use of well known Bitcoin mixers with the risk of having the stolen coins frozen. They either mix the coins themselves as they most likely have the knowledge to develop their own mixing system backed with a solid algorithm. Or they somehow end up selling these coins at a significant discount.

Don't know what they do, never heard about that mixing system... I think they buy some altcoins like monero and others anonymous alts so in this way they can buy bitcoin again sometime...
Hope one day someone find a way to deal with hackers and scammes...

Well all i know is there is no law about it because its your responsibility to have that bitcoin you must be wise up and think because i am a victim of that stolen bitcoin thing i really didn't knew that it was a scammed i thought that its very nice to have a high security wallet and i rely on it i saved up much bitcoin from it and i really saved up 5.0 btc yes its true 5.0 damn its so big and all gone in a sec i search how to report the website but i filed up but today i don't have any replies i hope the creator of bitcoin can trace the website so that they can take my money back what they stole from me if there is a law about it its not that really special in the real world because its just normal playing games to them

no these problems are just a bad side of the extra features like anonyousity and those milletry grade security. thats why no one can easily track down those bitcoin scammers and if anyone tries to do that then they have to breake these rules

How could be a law for stolen bitcoin if bitcoin its currencie decentralized and without any rules, you are at crypto world and you know the risk associated to them, all the data stored at your computer its up to you to take care about your coins as your data.

Criminals must pay for their crimes no doubt about that, but the ones giving bad name to bitcoin are the banks through the media by saying that only cyber criminals use bitcoin.

If they really tried I'm sure that there could be a law about stolen Bitcoins, however investigations would likely be lengthy and there is a high chance it would lead to nothing happening if the person takes enough precautions to prevent people tracking them.

Plus getting laws about stolen Bitcoin bring a ton more other laws along with them, so it might not be worth it.

If a community wants to make a law on bitcoin stolen, they should have prepared a program that can discover or recognize the thieves. they should have some preparation of course, because it is not easy to find thieves because there is the so-called bitcoin mixer. the thieves probably use kind of thing to be anonymous, so their identities will not be known.

I dont think there will be any law regards to bitcoin because there are still no one controlling bitcoin, so this is one of the bitcoin weakness and it is hard to track who own the coin, so it is difficult to know who is the person responsible for the criminal act and up until now there is still no party who is able to freeze the wallet account

No I do not think that there will be putted a low on because its hard to do that and maybe even impossible to be honest.

And this is the main reason why bitcoin should be used for illegal activities. People right now tend to be more vigilant than before. The were a lot of cases proven that the criminals who uses bitcoin's were punished regardless of how hard can we determined the person it is still impossible to do so.

Nothing is impossible if the government wants to. Just like some countries, came up with cyber crime law. soon enough I am sure that there will be a law about online thieves, though its hard to impose those, but I'm sure thru time, it will be polished and become effective.

Yes there will could be law on stolen Bitcoin if there is a law recognising Bitcoin as a currency then stealing it becomes illegal then it can be enforced by the enforcement officer designated by law until that nothing will happen and if any enforcement officer wants to act then he will be acting ultra-vires over here, there are several things that are immoral but since the law is not there to make it illegal then there is nothing that can be done...

Bitcoin is legal in a lot of countries.

Anyway if you have bitcoins in your wallet, it's something that belongs to you so if someone steal it from you, for sure the guy can be accused at least from hacking.

The problem here is how to find the guy.

Hahaha! yes! he was just talking about the law for stealing bitcoins. I hope that somebody can impose a law so that bitcoin users can also have protection. I've heard so many complaints about stealing of bitcoins but it seems nothing happens because where can they go for their complain? and what if this things happens to me? where can i run?

Since bitcoin is pseudonymous so I think making law will go in vain because it would be hard to detect nad find those criminals. They would use VPN, and special proxy settings along with other security  to access internet and no one would able to find them. But less skilled one will get caught.

you don't know the actual meaning of pseudo-anonymous do you?
here's the some explanation
so the law will not go in vain,actually every of bitcoin's transactions can be traced by using blockchain explorer and those transactions history can't be deleted,it will stay forever

There are already laws regarding cyber crime. However, if you go to the police station and report that your coins have been stolen due to a hack, then they won't be able to do anything for you. First, because of the fact that they seriously have no clue on how to investigate this. Second, even if you report that you have been scammed by a webshop with fiat, and not Bitcoin, then they even don't know what to do.

I had a close friend of me that has been scammed by a webshop for €100 where he reported it at the police station, and nothing has been done. They didn't even take his case serious. He has taken the effort to contact the bank in question, and to report the webshop as it has been scamming him. That's when things started to move. The bank itself contacted the police, and that was exactly the moment they came to action. Police deparments are blatantly stopping with (educating) investing in their existing people just to save on costs. And that in the digital time we are in today... It's pathetic.

There is no need for a government to have a control of an asset so they can create some laws about it, for example the US government does not control the euro yet it is illegal to steal euro in American soil.

The Euro is a internationally recognized currency controlled and regulated by the EU.
The US recognizes that government and currency and thus agrees to enforce it as a currency within the US.
If a bank stores Euros and that bank is robbed, it is a normal currency theft, not an asset.

If there is no need for governments to control currencies or assets, then there would be no laws over them.
Your statement makes no sense from a legal point of view.

No one cares to make law for bitcoin because it is not controlled by anyone. Even if someone make law for bitcoin then also no one will care yup follow the rules because criminal are criminal forever. Making law will not make them fear of doing something as bitcoin is anonymous and it's hard to track them online.

That's only the thing mate. It's hard to track bitcoin thieves particularly that were in an open community here bitcoin world. Yes no one cares to make laws for stealing bitcoin for the fact that it is a decentralized currency and no one has the authority to have some control over it. It's just sad that it is one of the weakness of this very feature of bitcoin.

Maybe I did not explain myself clearly, lets give an example there are laws regarding space and what can be done there but does any government actually own it? No and they don't need it in order to create laws regarding the accepted behavior there.

i think this will be happen if the government is approving bitcoin and they make regulation about bitcoin beside that they will make a law for people which stolen bitcoin from other people. but for now, i think there is no law for any stolen bitcoin and we should be regret it when we loss our bitcoin and gets stolen.

There are no government laws regarding space.
There may be international treaties or proclamations from organizations such as the UN,
as to what space should or should not be used for, but those are worthless proclamations
with no ability of direct enforceability. Any attempts are indirect and by sanctions or etc.

Some countries have classified systems sitting and waiting in geosynchronous orbit including
nuclear weapons platforms, attack satellites, and space drones, which would be considered
violations of such treaties. Most agreements of space are only agreements as to disclosed human
objects in space such as the international space station and other educational/technological vessels,
and not of space itself.

The point is, that in order for a government to have a law about an issue or an object means that they
have full governance over that issue or object through control or enforcement. Since there can be
no true enforcement of the space around the Earth without creating an international space command
that is tasked to patrol that territory, there can be no official law regarding that space. The effect, is
that space is more like the wild west, where anything goes since there is no sheriff, just like Bitcoin.
Until there are direct laws and regulations about Bitcoin, it is as worthless as trying to regulate space.

You may attempt to apply pre-existing laws to Bitcoin directly, but without enforcement mechanisms
and intervention abilities it is worthless.

As far as I know, when a law is created, the government also put an agency into action and designate them to the task, if not, a branch or division is being created , this days it is not effective since they are just starting out, soon, I am sure, as I've said in my post, it will be polished. Ratification could be done to make it effective and cope up with the situation. It would take time and lots of trial and error.

The law should be. But it's hard to create it. Bitcoin is international currency that exist only only on the internet. And when someone steel your bitcoins today it's kind of only your problem and the site where you were holding it doesn't give you any guarantees to bring it back in the case of stolen. The law should be created international way. But again it will make bitcoin depended from governments.

      The legislation concerning cryptocurrencies is fuzzy and very different from country to country if there is any. The only sure in courts is that everyone is innocent until proven otherwise. However, to anyone is accused as thief  when will go trial  jury judges must have suffice evidence in order to convict him otherwise they are obliged to acquit him. Similarly how can the prosecutor prove that bitcoins was legal and he had not steal from someone else?

It is really hard to have a law regarding stolen bitcoins as because of the nature of bitcoin it is hard to determine if the bitcoins were stolen or lost,the law will not be able to proof anything so the cases will be just closed.
This is one of the disadventage of bitcoin.

Who would do that punishing thing? A country? An authority? Ofcourse no one will as long as bitcoin is not legalized in the world, bitcoin is still a digital currency that is used on internet, why would someone get punished for stealing numbers on internet? And even if they are spotted, who would prove they have done something like this as long as they can hide the coins which is possible in bitcoin?

Well if someone claims that someone stole his bitcoins he will probably make a report to the local police in his country,but it is impossible to prove that bitcoins were stolen so anyway there can be no laws regarding bitcoi s and people should stay safe when it comes to bitcoins.

A lot of digital crimes aren't processed especially in third world countries, a lot of governments don't have neither laws about crimes like that and don't have knowledge to find/arrest this kind of criminals.

It's hard to someone hack you and stolen your bitcoin however if it happen, probably you can't do much about.

i think there is a law on cyber crimes but as bitcoin is not a legal currency therefore stole bitcoin case cannot be entertain under this law because bitcoin is still illegal and there is still no low for illegal thighs to support them.

No, there couldn't. How could you prove that it is yours ? And how could you prove that the transaction sent was unintentional ?

It does not matter what you steal. Of you steal it's stolen and it means the owner no longer has it and the thief does. There already are laws against this but scammers have always been hard to catch and you habe to prove your theory is correct when exposing a thief. Since bitcoin can't be traced to people with much ease finding stolen bitcoin is near impossible. That does not mean however that the thief escapes the long arms of the law though.

Exactly, the only record you can have is the transaction sent or received in the wallet of the person who has stolen your bitcoins, and if you have reported that to police or cyber crime authority, how will you prove that the transaction was not sent by you and was done by someone else? That is why it is not possible.

i think not yet . Law need a real evidence and witness .. if bitcoin stealed how about evidence and witness
so my opinion very difficult to punishing, be carefully to saving your coin

I believe it depends on the country, because legal status and law systems are different, you know. In the countries where it is out of the law and there's no precedent in the law system you can steal btc and won't be punished at all. However, if you are in a country where btc is legal and it is possible to understand who stole your btc then the laws must already be there. And I'm sure you remember that guy saying he's sorry for stealing a lot of btc somewhere in Japan. I suppose he's in prison now.

That can be possible for bitcoin to have a law for this kind of incidents like being stolen or hacked accounts or bitcoin but it always up to the countries that supports bitcoin, if they support bitcoin and if they prioritize bitcoin they will make a law for bitcoin that can ensure its value.

There is no way to make a law to stolen bitcoins, since there is no way to reverse or acess any wallet adres besides the owner, the same way people does invest into ponzie, scam, hyip, and end loosing their money, you are in plenty control of your coins, soo every decision you make, every transaction its your fault, if you end loosing the coins investing them at wrong places. Soo i dont see what a law could do to people that invest at wrong places expecting the gold tree to multiply your investment.

I don't think law can be act with bitcoin system as bitcoin is the decentralized one as of now. However we should careful from the scammers and hackers in the bitcoin network

This thing really makes me feel sad, nothing can protrct bitcoin user against some bad people in the virtual world. If someone hack your account and stole ypur bitcoins, where to run? Where to go? Nothing!theres no law for bitcoins. And if ever your bitcoin wallet was hacked and you will tell that to the support of your wallet provider, they will just tell you that pls keep your password protected and do not yell it to anyone. Thats why i wanted  to atleast have law on bitcoins.

That's right, but the person who got scammed or got his bitcoins lost by another person is the one to have the report made, not the person who did the scam, and this person usually doesn't live in 3rd world countries, so finding the person who made the scam is possible, but putting him to law is pretty hard, as proving that he really made the theft is difficult.

I don't think that any law is here, Actually, many time i have bought the bitcoin and also sold them, but nothing any law i saw, may be some law is here, but i can't see any law discussion and also no one is here who said that when he want to sell his bitcoin than he faces the law, only some rules and regulations are here and nothing else.   

I'm not sure if there is any law for stolen bitcoins but there should be because it is the same thing as stealing money.

This phenomena is damaging the bitcoin itself but also the bitcoin users because they are unsafe if someone else steals money.

yeah there should be but good luck telling that to the law enforcement. and if you are living in one of those developing countries and encounter someone who is technologically challenged :) you are going to have a hard time even making him understand what you mean let alone file a complaint.

Even if it somehow comes to enforcement and legal action the most I usually see it come to is sites being shut down and warnings issued by financial security.

People don't go to jail for these type of scams and most cyber crime efforts are now focused on copyright infringement and financial (fiat) fraud.

I think that this law will not be until Bitcoins become the property of the government.

Haha all they would here is someone stole my legend of Zelda rupees! Get them nao! I'm gonna sue! It's sad but true, a lot of people don't know or care about bitcoin or recognize bitcoin as a legitimate currency.

i think , there is not law all about online activity
but this is good idea to make law about online activity