A court based in Hong Kong has acknowledged cryptocurrencies as property that can be held in trust in a ruling involving the defunct crypto exchange Gatecoin. In an analysis of the ruling published by the law firm Hogan Lovells, Judge Linda Chan reportedly said that crypto has property attributes. The court deemed that it was appropriate to follow reasoning applied by other jurisdictions that crypto was property and could form the subject matter of trust. Chan noted: “Like other common law jurisdictions, our definition of ‘property’ is an inclusive one and intended to have a wide meaning.“ According to Hogan Lovells, the new ruling can potentially give insolvency practitioners in Hong Kong greater clarity in terms of digital assets. Confirming that crypto constitutes property similar to other assets like stocks aligns Hong Kong with other jurisdictions. The case involves Gatecoin, a Hong-Kong based crypto exchange that suffered a hack back in 2016, losing around $2 million in digital assets. On March 2019, the exchange announced that it had received a mandatory liquidation order from a Hong Kong court.
Full story : Hong Kong court rules cryptocurrencies as property.
