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posted by janrinok on Saturday August 08 2015, @01:59PM   Printer-friendly
from the that's-one-interpretation dept.

A man seeking repayment for Bitcoin lost in the Mt Gox incident has seen his lawsuit dismissed in a Tokyo District Court, with the judge ruling that the gumblecash is "not subject to ownership" claims.

A resident of Kyoto, the plaintiff has stated that he had 458 Bitcoin, contentiously valued at about ¥31m (£160,000), which were stored with the exchange and subsequently lost, reported the Japan Times.

Earlier this month, the Mt Gox CEO, Mark Karpeles, was arrested as part of a police investigation into the exchange's collapse, which led to the loss of "hundreds of millions of dollars" worth of Bitcoin.

The French-born CEO allegedly inflated his personal account by manipulating virtual currency data, according to the Japan Times.

Karpeles denied criminal doings in a statement delivered by his lawyer, the BBC reported.

Judge Masumi Kurachi – who presided over the plaintiff's self-represented claim – stated that the Japanese Civil Code only envisaged proprietorship for tangible entities.

According to the Japan Times, the judge's position is that "it is evident Bitcoins do not possess the properties of tangible entities and acknowledged that they also do not offer exclusive control, because transactions between users are structured in such a way that calls for the involvement of a third party". ®


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  • (Score: 1) by Francis on Saturday August 08 2015, @02:46PM

    by Francis (5544) on Saturday August 08 2015, @02:46PM (#219876)

    Banks have banking regulations and Mt. GOX wasn't a bank. Because none of the exchanges are actually banks or regulated, they get treated differently.

    I'd assume that if the 1s and 0s were ones bank account balance that banking regulations would come into play. And even there, you don't own those ones and zeros, one you own is essentially an I owe you for the balance. The "money" is generally owned by the government in any country with its own currency.

    When you go outside the realm of state sponsored currency, you wind up with little, if any, protection in cases like this.