A Dutch court has made a very important judgement that could positively affect all Bitcoin (BTC) holders. The court ruling came in respect of a plaintiff who was owed 0.591 BTC according to court document, which was released on 20th March.
The plaintiff, Mr. J.W. De Vries lodged the complaint against Koinz Trading BV back in early February. Koinz is not a public company and had already been ordered by a court in the Middle Netherlands jurisdiction to pay Mr de Vries proceeds from mining, the 0.591 BTC, or make a penalty payment of up to €10,000.
It seems that Koinz failed to comply with the court’s demands to pay de Vries in BTC, and as a result were told, “pay up or be declared insolvent.”
What is interesting for those of us involved in the world of cryptocurrency, is the Dutch court’s statement with regard to Bitcoin having “all the characteristics of a property right”, and that therefore any claim to transfer of BTC under property rights is legitimate. The court text reads as follows
“Bitcoin exists, according to the court, from a unique, digitally encrypted series of numbers and letters stored on the hard drive of the right-holder’s computer. Bitcoin is ‘delivered’ by sending bitcoins from one wallet to another wallet. Bitcoins are stand-alone value files, which are delivered directly to the payee by the payer in the event of a payment. It follows that a Bitcoin represents a value and is transferable. In the court’s view, it thus shows characteristics of a property right. A claim for payment in Bitcoin is therefore to be regarded as a claim that qualifies for verification.”
The court also found that there was indisputably a contract between Koinz and Mr de Vries and that because the contract detail was set in Bitcoin, Mr de Vries should be paid in Bitcoin. As Cointelegraph states, “The court considers the legal relationship as a civil obligation to pay.”
The Dutch court’s decision is a step towards recognising Bitcoin as a legitimate currency, however not everyone is going in the same direction, The G20 Financial Stability Board (FSB) also issued a report on 20th March suggesting it is sticking with defining cryptocurrency as ‘assets’ and not a currency as the Dutch court ruling suggests. G20 claims that crypto “lacks the traits of sovereign currencies.” Mark Carnet, Governor of the Bank of England seems to agree with the FSB, because he made a similar statement last month, saying that in his opinion, “cryptocurrency has thus far failed to display the traditional characteristics of money.” He also said, “nobody uses it as a medium of exchange.” That’s not quite true Mr Carney, as the Dutch court judgment and others using BTC to pay for goods and services indicates.