It'd be interesting to see if anyone sues. Unjust enrichment may apply here.

You must mean mediation, arbitration requires a contract with a binding arbitration clause and certified arbiters.

Subscribing.

Good advice.

That does not answer my question. Who do you have the right against? To have a service right, you must have two parties. Who are you fulfilling the service for?

If there is no such contract, you have no right, simple as that. Using your "dollars for ditch" analogy, you have someone paying you to dig a ditch, hence the service contract (you know, offer, acceptance, consideration).


It's not gibberish, you are the one who claims that BTCs are a service right.

As to the rights under a licence, which licence would that be? (don't tell me the MIT Licence or I'll laugh). The only licence involved in any Bitcoin transaction is the program installation licence. No rights to a service arising from the MIT last time I read it.

I'd be even more surprised if you could claim a the existence of a trust from a software licence. Trusts can only exist from clear sources, such as a written trust, an oral agreement, a court order, or a will. Even implied trusts require the existence of a structured relationship between the parties. Good luck getting Bitcoin recognised as a trust in a court of law.

I am confused, are the 600 BTCs in the Escrow the same ones that were withdrawn? My understanding is that the transaction is way bigger than that, and that not all of the BTCs were transferred before the shut down, if that is not the case, then I completely withdraw my above argument.  

However, the heart of the argument remains. It seems like there are about 6 different theories as to what Bitcoin is in the eyes of the law. I've seen it refereed to as currency (therefore, it would be an illegal currency as only governments can issue currency in most jurisdictions). I've seen it referred to as a commodity (but it is not, it does not meet the legal requirement for one). It is not a security, and it is not a service. Each one of those would carry different legal consequences.

At the moment, the best legal security for BTC is not property law, but hacking laws.

Interesting question. Who do you have the service contract with? How did this contract come into existence?

I am assuming that you have a contract, quasi-contract, or similar legal source of obligations, as you are saying that you have a right.

Get your facts straight, you are talking of larceny and fraud.

Let us get the facts of the case straight so far. There was a hacking event. This is a criminal offence, no questions. The perpetrator accessed accounts (also a criminal offence), and tried to conduct a fraudulent transaction. This is where things get tricky legally. What was transferred in the eyes of the law?
- Currency? This would fall under many jurisdictions as either theft or fraud. No question about that.
- A service? Then it is larceny.
- Access to a key so that you can make a transfer of some intangible value from one ledger to another? Hacking at most.

As far as I understand, Kevin completed a transaction within the exchange, but the transaction has not really taken place (the BTCs have not been "deposited" to a wallet). If this is the case, firstly, there is no handling of stolen goods (even assuming that there is theft, which is not clear by far), so Kevin is not liable legally whatsoever.

Feeling guilty about something is not mean that a crime is committed, there has to be a crime. Here there is one clear act of hacking, but we cannot establish theft yet until we determine that BTCs are even subject of theft.


Ahh, you are talking about ethical conduct. Sure, Kevin keeping the BTCs would be ethically wrong, but is it illegal? You do need a law for determining that.

Bitcoin cannot have its pie and eat it too. It wants to be a decentralised system operating outside of the law and of government's jurisdiction. To do that, its legal status has to remain clouded, otherwise you would have regulators intervening. Unless that happens, law enforcement officials will laugh and treat this as the theft of gold in WoW.

Hehe. I am serious though. Theft has very specific connotations (warning, this discussion is about UK law, but this is typical of most systems I am familiar with). Most intangible theft, that is, money transfers, securities, etc. are classified as fraud, and that would depend on BTCs having some form of legal value. At the moment, BTCs are at best in a legal grey area. I cannot imagine that any enforcement agency would take theft (or fraud) in BTCs seriously (yet).

Hacking however is a well recognised offence, so the hacker is certainly liable regardless of Bitcoin's legal status. But Kevin would not be liable for making an exchange.

That only applies to tangible goods. BTCs are an unregulated market in virtual currency, so theft laws do not apply. There was no theft, there was hacking, and Kevin was not the perpetrator.

Really? Can you be more specific as to what law applies in this case?

Why in the seven blazes would the FBI be after you?

Serious question, what do you think they could possibly charge you with?

This is of course, assuming you are not the hacker, but if you were, you would not be here.

Kevin did not steal anything, he completed a trade. Unless he was the hacker, he did not steal anything. We are trying to establish exactly what BTCs are, but one thing is clear, they would not be subject to theft laws.

There is a bit of a Catch 22 situation here.

I've been having an argument with people in this forum who assure me that Bitcoin is not a currency for legal purposes. Forex is a currency exchange, so the inclusion in Forex would seem to indicate that Bitcoin is a currency. However, if it is, then it might be regulated, as all other currencies exchanged in Forex are subject to regulation of some sort.

Seeing how EFF dropped Bitcoin today, I would be extremely surprised if Forex picked it up, particularly because BTCs may have negative implications due to money laundering and drug dealing. Lawyers and investors can be very conservative when it comes to unknown liabilities.

Sorry for the late reply, busy day today. I'll keep it short to this point, which I think is important. Sorry if I sound like a banker, I specialise in financial law and e-commerce, hence my interest in Bitcoin, mostly from a European perspective though.

I'm interested to pursue this concept. I completely disagree that bitcoins are abstractions of an abstraction, they fulfil the meaning of an intangible good. They are created, allocated and transferred according to strict rules, encryption protocols and algorithms, 10 BTCs are 10 BTCs, the system recognises that there is such thing and it can be followed in a rather secure manner. True, these are cryptographic keys, but the keys represent an intangible good, just like the bits in a bank's server represent your account's balance. The law is perfectly fine with abstract representations of value. Nowadays, this is really what most capital is.

So, if these units of value are being used to pay for goods and services, that means that someone is pumping value into the economy in the shape of a cryptocurrency. I believe that there is a good chance that this may be deemed illegal by regulators. As of today, EFF has also its own doubts, and have decided to abandon Bitcoin.

I know EFF's lawyers will not have taken this decision lightly, they must be worried by many of the same things that worry me from a legal perspective.

Are you really doing 720, or is that what the table tells you that you are doing?

Most of them are, if they meet the definition of currency, and pass themselves off as currency.


Not currency. Credit tokens are credit tokens, they are a separate legal entity covered under consumer credit contracts. WoW and other virtual currencies are not accepted as means of payment by parties other than the issuer (definition of currency). There is a black market for WoW gold, but this is illegal as currency by the very definition of Blizzard's ToC.


These are not currencies, they are commodities, they have legal definitions (and are regulated).


Chips are not currency, they are not accepted as means of payment by anyone other than the issuer.


If that community is issuing value, then it is illegal as well according to U.S. law.

No, drugs are a commodity 

Commodities can be used as means of exchange in barter or through exchanges, but they are not currency in the legal sense. Usually, we define them as symbolic value imprinted in a coin, paper, or electronic medium (read the definition of electronic money in the European Directives for example).

I really recommend Friedman's article I cited earlier.

So, anyone who disagrees with Bitcoin in these parts is a troll, right?

By the mention of Black's and circuit judges I assume that you are in the U.S. You do know that the world is much larger than that, right? (HINT: I'm not a U.S. lawyer).

I'm really disappointed, I was really looking forward to having a civil discussion here.