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As I understand it, the distinction is not whether or not you can own bitcoins. The distinction is whether or not you can own _particular_ bitcoins. If, say,

As I understand it, the distinction is not whether or not you can own bitcoins. The distinction is whether or not you can own _particular_ bitcoins. If, say, a "sell it on ebay" store went bankrupt, I could say, "those are my Air Jordans", and I would get those particular shoes back. On the other hand, if a bank goes bankrupt, I can't say "I deposited those particular bills with those serial numbers". The court has ruled that bitcoins follow the latter principle, so if each depositor gets back 50% of the deposited bitcoins, I can't get back 100% by pointing to the particular bitcoins I deposited.

saalweachter 11y ago
How about the analogy of robbing a bank vault versus robbing safe deposit boxes? If half the money is stolen from the bank vault, everyone at the bank has lost half their money (ignoring insurance, etc). If the contents of half the safe deposit boxes are stolen, you don't distribute the remaining safe deposit boxes among all the customers; half lost everything and half lost nothing.
TheCoelacanth 11y ago
They didn't even say that you can't own particular bitcoins, just that in the specific case of MtGox you don't own particular bitcoins. To make the analogy to real money, if you put a stack of bills in a security deposit box in a bank, and the bank goes bankrupt, you can get the contents of the box back, because you still own those specific bills. On the other hand, if you write down the serial numbers of the bills and deposit them in a bank account, then the bank goes bankrupt, you can't go into the bank's vault and pick out the bills that match your list of serial numbers. You have to get in line with the other people who have money deposited in the bank, because you don't own those specific bills anymore. So, basically they just decided that MtGox operates more like a bank account for bitcoins than like a security deposit box for bitcoins.

saalweachter 11y ago

How about the analogy of robbing a bank vault versus robbing safe deposit boxes? If half the money is stolen from the bank vault, everyone at the bank has lost half their money (ignoring insurance, etc). If the contents of half the safe deposit boxes are stolen, you don't distribute the remaining safe deposit boxes among all the customers; half lost everything and half lost nothing.

TheCoelacanth 11y ago

They didn't even say that you can't own particular bitcoins, just that in the specific case of MtGox you don't own particular bitcoins. To make the analogy to real money, if you put a stack of bills in a security deposit box in a bank, and the bank goes bankrupt, you can get the contents of the box back, because you still own those specific bills. On the other hand, if you write down the serial numbers of the bills and deposit them in a bank account, then the bank goes bankrupt, you can't go into the bank's vault and pick out the bills that match your list of serial numbers. You have to get in line with the other people who have money deposited in the bank, because you don't own those specific bills anymore. So, basically they just decided that MtGox operates more like a bank account for bitcoins than like a security deposit box for bitcoins.