Quote from: vesperwillow on August 29, 2013, 12:25:56 PM

I'm starting to get curious why the OP is trying to use surgical precision with the concept. Sounds like there's some digging going on to get at something.

There are several constructions possible with Bitcoin and duplication of private keys where I can't grasp the moral or legal risk and thus your rights after losing control of bitcoins. I'd like to know how people think of "rights" and "ownership" in relation to private keys and bitcoins and hopefully, through following the logic, to see how these hold up in all the different scenario's. Instead of giving my own single scenarios, I'm trying to find some consistent definitions supported by the users here.

For example: Would you consider bitcoins an intangible asset? How about a financial asset? Or should it be whole new asset class altogether with corresponding laws? There are already laws regarding property (ownership rights) and how would you like to see these applied to the attributes of Bitcoin or would you like to see new laws passed?

The reason I'm asking about the opinion of the Bitcoin Foundation is because it might carry some weight with the regulators.

Quote from: optimator on August 29, 2013, 12:47:05 PM

Not quite. My point is tangental to Santori's ownership/control analogy. I'm suggesting that once someone loses control of a bitcoin address, and the new controlling party spends those coins, then those coins should be able to be spent freely by subsequent owners. More specifically there should be no blacklist attempt to quarantine tainted coins.

Ah, understood.