I hope I understand the basic principles of how Justice system works, and maybe I can contribute to the thread.

There is two core questions about Bitcoin:

1. Is it a property from Justice system point of view?
if it is
2. how to punish for stealing it?

Right now Bitcoin is beyond the scope of laws in most jurisdictions. The simplest way the scope can change is to declare through precedent or amending a law that bitcoin is property because it is. But, bitcoin, namecoin, litecoin etc. is a message that has core feature which differentiate it from any other type of message. Bitcoin is a record in distributed database that solves the Byzantine Generals' Problem. In another words it is a record in distributed database that is consistent among all it's users, and that's exactly the reason why it is possible for such record to have a value. And it can be declared that record in such database is property, because that's what makes it different from WoW gold or EVE ISKs.

But, punishing for theft won't be easy because possibility of finding those responsible depends on how bitcoins were stolen e.g. a case where bitcoins were stolen by virus from a home computer is different from case when bitcoins were stolen by exchange operator who run away with it.


Also, it's not directly related to the topic but there is other laws related to property that could be enforced if it is possible to prove in court that specific bitcoin transaction happened between two parties, possible technical implementation by Gavin.