9 Virtual Currency and the Law

Subject(s):

Currency — Monetary system

This chapter explains how the law, generally, has little difficulty dealing with things which do not physically exist. Loans, patents, payment obligations, and service contracts create a complex matrix of intangible but identifiable and enforceable legal obligations. It may be tempting to think that simply adding another intangible to this mix will cause no great difficulty. Different types of property trigger different types of protections, after all. However, it is wrong to think of property as a bundle of rights; rather, property is defined by the way in which it is protected in law. It follows from this that in considering the legal position in respect of any particular thing, such as virtual currency, identifying it as a form of property is the beginning rather than the end of the legal analysis.