4 ms·

Either I'm misunderstanding this or other people are, because I'm seeing other people interpret this as saying Japanese law doesn't allow ownership of intangibl

Either I'm misunderstanding this or other people are, because I'm seeing other people interpret this as saying Japanese law doesn't allow ownership of intangible things, which of course it does. My take on it is that this is specifically about a provision of bankruptcy law. Suppose you lend (not give or sell) your car to a company that then goes bankrupt with the vehicle in its possession, and you go along to reclaim it. The officials handling the case might say "Okay, let's check the blue book value of the car and you'll get your pro rata percentage of that money when everything is settled." To which you can reply "No, you don't understand. I'm not saying the company owes me money. I'm saying that's my car, license number such and such, it doesn't belong to the company at all, so it's not part of the bankruptcy proceedings, it belongs to me and I want it back right now." And assuming you have the documentation to prove it, the law will support your case. In this case the court has ruled that you can't point to a particular bitcoin and say that's my bitcoin, because bitcoin has the properties of money rather than of particular tangible objects, so all you can say is you are owed a certain amount of bitcoins. And so the owner of such will get his pro rata percentage after everything is settled, instead of getting the whole lot right now. Am I understanding it correctly?

ska 11y ago
As far as I can see, yes, you are understanding it correctly. This discussion seems full of misinterpreting a term of art as something closer to colloquial meaning, and then drawing inferences from that. Such inferences by nature will usually be deeply flawed.
SCAQTony 11y ago
Your second to last paragraph; that is an interesting concept! Imagine if the court orders this beast to pay back the victims in Bitcoins with the exact amount of bitcoins they had lost rather than the dollar value. Since he will be paying them back in Bitcoins that have lost 75% or more of their value when he exits jail, he may still own 6-figures in "cash" worth of Bitcoins.
- ams6110 11y ago
  I don't think a bankruptcy court would accept settlement in bitcoins; since bankruptcy settlements are based on a share of the remaining asset value in the bankrupt entity.
- michaelt 11y ago
  When a limited company goes bankrupt all the company's assets are auctioned off and the resulting money is put into a big pile; and all the people the company owes money (or produce) send in evidence of how much they're owed and these liabilities are put into another big pile. The receivers, who are hired to administer this process, take their pay straight off the top of the money pile. The remaining money pile is divided up among the creditors, depending on how much they've shown they're owed. There isn't enough money to go around (if there was, the company wouldn't be bankrupt) so everyone gets less than they're owed. When this process is complete the company is gone, and nobody owes anyone anything. This is what "limited liability" means - none of the investors or owners of the company is liable for anything beyond their initial investment. So if you sold the company a $1000 widget and gave them 90 days to pay, and they go bankrupt in those 90 days, you might only get $10 or $100 back from the receivers. Just because someone has lost $1000 worth of bitcoins, doesn't mean they'll ever see them again or anyone is legally liable to pay them back - in cash or in bitcoins.
  - knodi123 11y ago
    Thanks, now I know what "going into receivership" means. This was very clear and informative.
  - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
    Could you go and say 'that is my widget' as the sale wasn't complete (assuming the widget was something tangible that could be returned)?
asimpletune 11y ago
> "you can't point to a particular bitcoin and say that's my bitcoin" Doesn't every Bitcoin have a serial number, similar to the car's license plate?
- rwallace 11y ago
  I'm no expert on bitcoin, but as I understand it, the answer is not really: bitcoin works by numbers, but they are not equivalent to the serial numbers on dollar bills, more like rough equivalents of bank account numbers, login passwords and balances.
- otoburb 11y ago
  No. Every transaction has a corresponding hash (similar to a car's license plate number), but bitcoins themselves are consolidated into inputs and resultant outputs. The chain of ownership is established through the transactions recorded in the ledger[1]. Here's an example 10BTC transaction assuming no intermediate fees: A(2) + B(8) ==> X(5) + Y(5) You can't tell how many of A's bitcoins were sent to X or Y, but you can trace the transactions all the way to the originally mined blocks that each contained 50BTC. [1] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction
  - simonebrunozzi 11y ago
    To an extent, bitcoins don't exist at all. Wallets exist, and balances in those wallets exist.
  - asimpletune 11y ago
    Thanks for that explanation
logfromblammo 11y ago
With the way Bitcoin works, if you can point to a Bitcoin and say "that's my Bitcoin", you don't need the court's help to get it back. You could just issue your own transaction. Bitcoin are inherently bearer instruments. If you can spend the Bitcoin, you own it; if you can't, you don't. MtGOX owned all those Bitcoins, because it had to in order to do anything with them, and its customers owned promises made by MtGOX. I think the court could have made that a bit more clear in its ruling, but I think there may have been an explicit effort to avoid comparing Bitcoin to banknotes. It doesn't matter if it's tangible or intangible. What matters is that there is no possible evidence of ownership that could be presented to the court to restore the property. MtGOX customers spent their Bitcoins to MtGOX, and received promises in exchange. It was a nice attempt, but the straws eluded their grasp. They wait and get their pro rata share, just like all the other creditors.

ska 11y ago

As far as I can see, yes, you are understanding it correctly. This discussion seems full of misinterpreting a term of art as something closer to colloquial meaning, and then drawing inferences from that. Such inferences by nature will usually be deeply flawed.

SCAQTony 11y ago

Your second to last paragraph; that is an interesting concept! Imagine if the court orders this beast to pay back the victims in Bitcoins with the exact amount of bitcoins they had lost rather than the dollar value. Since he will be paying them back in Bitcoins that have lost 75% or more of their value when he exits jail, he may still own 6-figures in "cash" worth of Bitcoins.

ams6110 11y ago
I don't think a bankruptcy court would accept settlement in bitcoins; since bankruptcy settlements are based on a share of the remaining asset value in the bankrupt entity.
michaelt 11y ago
When a limited company goes bankrupt all the company's assets are auctioned off and the resulting money is put into a big pile; and all the people the company owes money (or produce) send in evidence of how much they're owed and these liabilities are put into another big pile. The receivers, who are hired to administer this process, take their pay straight off the top of the money pile. The remaining money pile is divided up among the creditors, depending on how much they've shown they're owed. There isn't enough money to go around (if there was, the company wouldn't be bankrupt) so everyone gets less than they're owed. When this process is complete the company is gone, and nobody owes anyone anything. This is what "limited liability" means - none of the investors or owners of the company is liable for anything beyond their initial investment. So if you sold the company a $1000 widget and gave them 90 days to pay, and they go bankrupt in those 90 days, you might only get $10 or $100 back from the receivers. Just because someone has lost $1000 worth of bitcoins, doesn't mean they'll ever see them again or anyone is legally liable to pay them back - in cash or in bitcoins.
- knodi123 11y ago
  Thanks, now I know what "going into receivership" means. This was very clear and informative.
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago
  Could you go and say 'that is my widget' as the sale wasn't complete (assuming the widget was something tangible that could be returned)?

asimpletune 11y ago

> "you can't point to a particular bitcoin and say that's my bitcoin" Doesn't every Bitcoin have a serial number, similar to the car's license plate?

rwallace 11y ago
I'm no expert on bitcoin, but as I understand it, the answer is not really: bitcoin works by numbers, but they are not equivalent to the serial numbers on dollar bills, more like rough equivalents of bank account numbers, login passwords and balances.
otoburb 11y ago
No. Every transaction has a corresponding hash (similar to a car's license plate number), but bitcoins themselves are consolidated into inputs and resultant outputs. The chain of ownership is established through the transactions recorded in the ledger[1]. Here's an example 10BTC transaction assuming no intermediate fees: A(2) + B(8) ==> X(5) + Y(5) You can't tell how many of A's bitcoins were sent to X or Y, but you can trace the transactions all the way to the originally mined blocks that each contained 50BTC. [1] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction
- simonebrunozzi 11y ago
  To an extent, bitcoins don't exist at all. Wallets exist, and balances in those wallets exist.
- asimpletune 11y ago
  Thanks for that explanation

logfromblammo 11y ago

With the way Bitcoin works, if you can point to a Bitcoin and say "that's my Bitcoin", you don't need the court's help to get it back. You could just issue your own transaction. Bitcoin are inherently bearer instruments. If you can spend the Bitcoin, you own it; if you can't, you don't. MtGOX owned all those Bitcoins, because it had to in order to do anything with them, and its customers owned promises made by MtGOX. I think the court could have made that a bit more clear in its ruling, but I think there may have been an explicit effort to avoid comparing Bitcoin to banknotes. It doesn't matter if it's tangible or intangible. What matters is that there is no possible evidence of ownership that could be presented to the court to restore the property. MtGOX customers spent their Bitcoins to MtGOX, and received promises in exchange. It was a nice attempt, but the straws eluded their grasp. They wait and get their pro rata share, just like all the other creditors.