It has come to my attention that my article "Implications of the Blockchain Technology for the UNCITRAL Works" had been published from the United Nations in November last year. The 50th anniversary Congress was a big occasion for UNCITRAL and it was my great honour to be part of it. Here is my article excerpted from the...

I will be presenting my thoughts on the subject above in the upcoming Congress of the UNCITRAL for the celebration of its 50th anniversary (4-6 July 2017).My paper currently on the Congress website is a version which I sent to the UNCITRAL Secretariat some months ago and which no longer represents my latest thinking...

The above phrase is the title of the note at http://sclbc.zehuti.co.uk/site.aspx?i=ed47875. I guess what the authors meant was who owns "bitcoins" while they also rightly point out relevance to other blockchain-based assets. It is nice to see this and other writings appearing in the course of last year which deal with...

Attached here is the powerpoint file I used in my presentation at the Cyberspace 2016 conference on 26 Nov. 2016.I examined the Tokyo District Court's decision in a suit filed after the opening of Mt.Gox's bankruptcy proceedings. The suit was filed outside the bankruptcy proceedings to obtain a full recovery of the bitcoins...

As I mentioned in my earlier post, the Tokyo District Court in its judgment on 5 August 2015 denied the ownership (more precisely, "shoyûken" in Japanese) of bitcoins. In that post, I have also noted that translating "shoyûken" into the English word "ownership" may be misleading. In this post, I will look at the choice-of-law...

As I mentioned in my earlier post, the Tokyo District Court in its judgment on 5 August 2015 denied the ownership (more precisely, "shoyûken" in Japanese) of bitcoins. In that post, I have also noted that translating "shoyuken" into the English word "ownership" may be misleading.Until recently, the only way to examine...

When we consider whether it is possible in law to obtain the recovery of stolen cryptocurrency units, what matters is normative, rather than technical, traceability of the stolen units. This is so whether the claim for recovery is based on the ownership of the units or the restitution of unjust enrichment.There may be...

In my earlier post, I have noted the difficulty of localising cryptocurrency for the purpose of choice of law for proprietary issues.The difficulty of localisation in choice of law is not unique to blockchain. The high seas and outer space, too, present the same difficulty since no nation exercise sovereignty over such...

Arvind Narayanan writes in his blog post that since banks can reverse fraudulent transactions and law enforcement of digital financial crimes is relatively competent, the risk of getting caught combined with the diminished ability to cash in on attacks skew the economics against attackers. He contrasts this with bitcoin...

With respect to most tangible items, ownership is not determined by possession. Thus, if I hold in my possession a bicycle which I have rented, it does not make me the owner of the bicycle.With respect to traditional coins and notes, Japanese law makes an exception to this principle. According to an established line of...

In my earlier post, I have noted why legal ownership of cryptocurrency matters. The use of cryptocurrency as a collateral is also imaginable. The prerequisites for acquiring such proprietary rights and their effect are to be determined by legal rules. In the absence of internationally uniform rules, an applicable...

What follows is a description of three of the circumstances where the legal ownership of cryptocurrency matters.1. The person with whom cryptocurrency is deposited (such as the provider of an exchange or an online wallet) has gone bankrupt. The depositor would certainly have a contractual claim for the return of the...

　田髙寛貴「金銭所有権と価値の追及」(法学教室June 2015 No.417、22頁)は、仮想通貨の物権的側面の検討に大変示唆的である。　この論文は、現金通貨に物権的保護を認める議論を展開した上で、預金債権は、預金保護措置などにより、弁済確実性が高いことから、「現金をもっている」のと同視でき、他の一般の債権と区別されうるとする。ただ、郵便切手や有価証券，さらには商品券やプリペイドカード，電子マネー等々，多様な金銭価値の存在形態のうち，どこまでを物権的帰属保護の対象に含めてよいかは問題であるとし、「ビットコインは、通貨としての価値を担保する機関が存在しておらず、このようなものにまで物権的な帰属保護が妥当するとはいえない」と述べる。...

The Tokyo District Court ruling on 5 August 2015 is reported as having denied the "ownership" ("shoyûken" in Japanese) of bitcoins on the ground that shoyûken is a concept limited to tangible things. This ruling cannot be wrong so far as the Japanese law concept of shoyûken is concerned since no one can deny that bitcoins...