Chinese Court Rules Bitcoin Should Be Protected As Property (coindesk.com) 51
A Chinese court has ruled that despite the country's central bank's ban on cryptocurrency trading, bitcoin should be legally protected as a property with economic values. CoinDesk reports: The Shenzhen Court of International Arbitration published a case analysis on Thursday via WeChat, detailing its ruling on a recent economic dispute that involved a business contract relating to possession and transfer of crypto assets. According to the case analysis, the unnamed plaintiff signed a contract agreement with the defendant, which allowed the latter to trade and manage a pool of cryptocurrencies on the plaintiff's behalf. However, the plaintiff said the defendant failed and refused to return the cryptocurrencies after an agreed deadline. As a result, they brought the case to the arbitrator, seeking the return of the assets with interest. The court concluded that, whether bitcoin is a legal tender or not, does not have an impact on the fact that bitcoin ownership should be protected legally based on China's contract law, adding: "Bitcoin has the nature of a property, which can be owned and controlled by parties, and is able to provide economic values and benefits."
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A Chinese court thinks they will set national law without consulting Party HQ in Peking?
You misunderstand how things work in China.
America is a federation, where in theory, most power is at the state level, but in practice power is often centralized in Washington.
China is the opposite. In theory, power is centralized, but in practice it is widely disbursed.
China does not have an independent judiciary, but courts are often influenced much more by local politicians, than by far of Beijing. The local politicians in Shenzhen, a cosmopolitan city a stone's throw from the HK border, are going to b
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These things happen when religious systems like communism butt up against reality.
Communism says that the government owns everything. A free society dictates that what's mine is mine and what's yours is yours, people are not free if others can just take the fruits of your labors no matter how trivial the specific item might seem. A free society also dictates that people must hold up their end of the deal, as in a contract is a contract and you can't expect to step out of it without consequences. There's several forms to enforce a contract, and not all of them require a government. So
China has been running away from Communism 1978 (Score:3)
China started privatizing businesses in 1978, starting with small businesses This continued through the 1980s and large concerns were privatized 1990s in order to try to be able to compete the United States economically (and not starve).
By one measure, China is now only "65% Communist", while the US has increased to 48%. (Putting both firmly in the socialist range).
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Unfortunately for the Chinese, Chairman-for-life Xi Jinping has reversed privatization, is increasing funding for SOEs, and is increasing regulation on private companies that try to compete with them. More political repression, more economic insanity.
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Communism says that the government owns everything.
No it doesn't. Communism says the government withers away. The people collectively own capital - the means of production. Non-capital goods are individually owned. So your toothbrush is yours, and yours alone.
At least that is the theory. In practice, it works like this [pics.me.me].
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If "the People" collectively own everything, then noone owns anything.
On the other hand, I've got stock in a couple dozen companies (not large amounts, mind you, but some), as do most of us (what? you thought your 401K and/or IRA just stuck the money into someone's mattress?). So, yeah, I own capital. A small piece of it, but some....
Re: Thus, coin became defacto currency, gaijinn (Score:1)
1. Japanese donâ(TM)t write transliterated in roman characters.
2. This is about China, which officially speaks Mandarin, not Japanese. I would however expect to hear some Cantonese so close to Hong Kong.
Tax (Score:2)
And taxed as such?
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Just like they can "own" property, get a "passport", live in a city, travel domestically.
When they want real money out of a cyber currency they can attempt to do that government approved transaction inside China. No trying to move "money" out of the country.
No using another nation to hide cash wealth created from a cryptocurrency.
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And taxed as such?
For taxing, you would need to determine the value, or possibly profits. And I have no idea how Chinese tax laws work. But in most countries I would expect profits to be taxable.
I suspect there is nothing new here actually. Just that some scammer was given someone else's bitcoins for trading, didn't return them, and probably made a lame excuse, which the court then didn't refute.
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And taxed as such?
It's either currency, in which many, many countries would have issues with it, as that is something governments reserve to themselves, or it skirts those laws as some kind of traded item, in which case it would normally be taxed when converting to cash aka selling it like any other sale, or when it is used to buy something, in which case it is trading something for something, which is often taxed as a sale of cash value (lest people escape sales taxes by implementing a trading economy.)
Ergo and the indisputable logic (Score:2)
Bitcoin is little more than a laundering service.. (Score:2, Informative)
Bad at Communism. (Score:2)