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Chinese Court Rules Bitcoin Should Be Protected As Property (coindesk.com)
A Chinese court has ruled that despite the country's central bank's ban on cryptocurrency trading, bitcoin should be legally protected as a property with economic values. CoinDesk reports: The Shenzhen Court of International Arbitration published a case analysis on Thursday via WeChat, detailing its ruling on a recent economic dispute that involved a business contract relating to possession and transfer of crypto assets. According to the case analysis, the unnamed plaintiff signed a contract agreement with the defendant, which allowed the latter to trade and manage a pool of cryptocurrencies on the plaintiff's behalf. However, the plaintiff said the defendant failed and refused to return the cryptocurrencies after an agreed deadline. As a result, they brought the case to the arbitrator, seeking the return of the assets with interest. The court concluded that, whether bitcoin is a legal tender or not, does not have an impact on the fact that bitcoin ownership should be protected legally based on China's contract law, adding: "Bitcoin has the nature of a property, which can be owned and controlled by parties, and is able to provide economic values and benefits."
And taxed as such?
These things happen when religious systems like communism butt up against reality.
Communism says that the government owns everything. A free society dictates that what's mine is mine and what's yours is yours, people are not free if others can just take the fruits of your labors no matter how trivial the specific item might seem. A free society also dictates that people must hold up their end of the deal, as in a contract is a contract and you can't expect to step out of it without consequences. There's several forms to enforce a contract, and not all of them require a government. Societal shunning of untrustworthy people is one means to enforce a contract. If you back out on your word then you might have trouble making contracts in the future.
I'm pleased to hear that China is taking contract law seriously, this means that people can conduct business and not have to expend resources in enforcing contracts through non-government means. I'm pleased to hear that China takes property rights seriously. The court could have simply denied to hear the case. The court could have taken the property for the government. The court could have done all kinds of things on what many might see as a trivial matter.
If the government of China is seeing personal property as valuable, valuable enough to expend resources in a court to defend them, then this is a shift away from Communism. Reality is butting up against Communism, and Communism is losing. Reality is that if you want prosperity then you need to grant people freedom.
The religion of communism just died a little today.
An asset with a value of >0 is to be treated as property... no fracking wonder the Chinese have come to dominate the World's economic theater.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
and get rich quick scheme.
China started privatizing businesses in 1978, starting with small businesses This continued through the 1980s and large concerns were privatized 1990s in order to try to be able to compete the United States economically (and not starve).
By one measure, China is now only "65% Communist", while the US has increased to 48%. (Putting both firmly in the socialist range).
A Chinese court thinks they will set national law without consulting Party HQ in Peking?
You misunderstand how things work in China.
America is a federation, where in theory, most power is at the state level, but in practice power is often centralized in Washington.
China is the opposite. In theory, power is centralized, but in practice it is widely disbursed.
China does not have an independent judiciary, but courts are often influenced much more by local politicians, than by far of Beijing. The local politicians in Shenzhen, a cosmopolitan city a stone's throw from the HK border, are going to be far more liberal in their rulings than the national court in Beijing.
Communism says that the government owns everything.
No it doesn't. Communism says the government withers away. The people collectively own capital - the means of production. Non-capital goods are individually owned. So your toothbrush is yours, and yours alone.
At least that is the theory. In practice, it works like this.
1. Japanese donâ(TM)t write transliterated in roman characters.
2. This is about China, which officially speaks Mandarin, not Japanese. I would however expect to hear some Cantonese so close to Hong Kong.
If "the People" collectively own everything, then noone owns anything.
On the other hand, I've got stock in a couple dozen companies (not large amounts, mind you, but some), as do most of us (what? you thought your 401K and/or IRA just stuck the money into someone's mattress?). So, yeah, I own capital. A small piece of it, but some....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
China sucks at Communism now. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Communism is pretty bad on its own, so being bad at it doesn't suck like being bad at processing lactose does.