Post
Topic
Board Legal
Re: Are Bitcoin's virtual property?
by
Serith
on 09/12/2012, 13:56:31 UTC
I define a property as: a scarce tangible entity, corporeal or incorporeal, of which the access to and control of has been restricted and limited

The important part of my definition is scarcity. I do not regard entities that aren't scarce as property for example such as information that can be easily and cheaply perfectly copied without causing a loss what so ever to the original medium it was carried by.



So given my definition in Bitcoin only a Bitcoin transactions(more precisely the unspent outputs as was alluded to above) fits it. It is a tangible incorporeal and scarce entity that I restricted and limited the use of by keeping my private keys secret. When someone steals my bitcoins what they really stole is the irreversible and non double spendable and therefor scarce transaction that can be made with the private key and that I have restricted and limited the use of. 

In another thread I posted that this idea could be used to legally define Bitcoin.


...
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.