Singapore High Court Recognises Crypto As ‘Property’ In A Judgement

Countries around the globe are struggling to identify Cryptocurrencies under certain categories. On the other hand, the High Court of Singapore in a judgment recognized ‘Cryptocurrency as property’.

The court has also granted a proprietary injunction against an unknown person suspected of theft. The stolen crypto includes Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) worth approx $7 million.

What does the court say?

Actually, Back in January 2021, the victim gave access to his safe to one of his acquaintances. The Safe contained the recovery seed to his digital wallets. The next day, the victim realized that crypto assets worth around $7 million were stolen from his wallets.

As per Lexology, the plaintiff held stolen BTC and ETH in two digital wallets which were protected with the passwords. The court has ordered the cryptocurrency exchanges to provide the materials to assist with asset tracking. In addition, the judge also granted a worldwide freezing order against the unknown defendants.

What does this decision mean?

It is a welcome decision for the crypto world as a Southeast Asian country is prepared to recognize and protect cryptocurrencies as properties. Not just this, the courts are ready to grant proprietary injunctions against digital asset theft even if the offender’s identity is unknown.

This decision demonstrates that Courts are prepared to make disclosure orders against cryptocurrency exchanges that are based or have operations in Singapore, wrote Lexology

However, The ruling also enables the crypto theft victim to access critical information so that they can freeze and trace the stolen assets.

As per the analysis, cryptocurrency exchanges based or operating in Singapore can be served with disclosure orders issued by the Courts. They have to comply with the court orders to disclose information relating to user accounts or to freeze cryptocurrency held by a user.