Hi Knut, thanks for your post. I wanted to share a few legal insights on the topics you brought up.
Legal systems have invented laws dealing with the "ownership“ of information. Such laws are called Intellectual Property. In practice, “ownership” of information means a monopoly granted by the state to use specific information. For example, as an author, you can own a sequence of words written in your book (copyrights). In some cases, you can even "own" ideas (e.g., inventions or trade secrets).
Therefore, creating legal ownership of bitcoin should not pose a special problem. The state may grant you a right to your bitcoin (private key) and even protect such a right. The problem of "proving" that certain bitcoin is yours may be important in practice, but it constitutes a separate issue, the so-called procedural problem. Being an owner and proving ownership are different matters and should not be mixed up.
Banning sovereign (unhosted) wallets is yet another matter. As is "stopping or restricting Bitcoin." I would agree that such ideas are totalitarian in nature. It would be like banning the use of language or mathematics altogether (as opposed to banning unauthorised use or theft of someone else’s private key).
GracjanPietras / Gracjan Pietras
npub1trk…tss5
2024-04-28 00:30:59
in reply to nevent1q…nudt
Author Public Key
npub1trkudtnp7jg3tmy4sz8mepmgs5wdxk9x2esgts25mgkyecrse7js6ptss5Published at
2024-04-28 00:30:59Event JSON
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"created_at": 1714257059,
"kind": 1,
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"content": "Hi Knut, thanks for your post. I wanted to share a few legal insights on the topics you brought up.\n\nLegal systems have invented laws dealing with the \"ownership“ of information. Such laws are called Intellectual Property. In practice, “ownership” of information means a monopoly granted by the state to use specific information. For example, as an author, you can own a sequence of words written in your book (copyrights). In some cases, you can even \"own\" ideas (e.g., inventions or trade secrets).\n\nTherefore, creating legal ownership of bitcoin should not pose a special problem. The state may grant you a right to your bitcoin (private key) and even protect such a right. The problem of \"proving\" that certain bitcoin is yours may be important in practice, but it constitutes a separate issue, the so-called procedural problem. Being an owner and proving ownership are different matters and should not be mixed up.\n\nBanning sovereign (unhosted) wallets is yet another matter. As is \"stopping or restricting Bitcoin.\" I would agree that such ideas are totalitarian in nature. It would be like banning the use of language or mathematics altogether (as opposed to banning unauthorised use or theft of someone else’s private key).",
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}