Chinese Court Declares Bitcoin a Legally Protected Asset: Report
A founding partner of the venture capital and private equity firm Primitive Ventures says a court case in China may have played a role in Bitcoin’s sudden burst from $9,400 to $10,600.
According to Dovey Wan, the Bitcoin buzz on Chinese social media points to a new ruling in a Chinese court affirming BTC is legally protected virtual property with inherent value.
“I was browsing Weibo and Wechat on sentiment around the sharp Bitcoin rally, instead of Libra, folks attributed the rally to the case above then I realized it’s indeed a big milestone…
This is like unreal to me actually, has been under years of ‘holding Bitcoin is illegal you mother fucking criminal’ cloud in mainland China and now it’s all clear. Thank you Bitcoin.”
The case was decided in Hangzhou, which holds one of China’s three internet courts, reports Beijing News.
“It is worth noting that this is the first time that our court has determined the attributes of the virtual property of digital currency such as Bitcoin. The Hangzhou Internet Court stated that Bitcoin has the value, scarcity, and disposable nature of property as a right object, and should be recognized as its virtual property status.”
Dovey warns that this does not mean crypto exchanges are suddenly legal in China.
China restricted crypto-related business activities, banned initial coin offerings and stopped banks from servicing exchanges back in 2017. Since then, people in China have used OTC (over-the-counter) trading to purchase cryptocurrency.
to be clear here, holding Bitcoin as a private property is legal does not mean “trading Bitcoin in a systematic way” is legal, yet
— Dovey Wan 🗝 🦖 (@DoveyWan) July 18, 2019
So don’t equate this as crypto exchange is legal in China there is still long way to go
One step a time
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