The Shanghai Hongkou District Court has today made an interesting ruling regarding Ethereum and a wide range of other cryptocurrencies. Despite the fact that these cryptocurrencies haven’t so far managed to attain the status of money, this court took an extreme stand regarding them. According to the ruling made recently, they bear the same legal protection as the ownership of property.
It was in August last year that a technology company based in Beijing conducted a fundraising that involved Ethereum and Bitcoin. That was the genesis of the case. The Chinese government reached a resolution to ban all the initial coin offerings, a move that had the business giant return the company to investors.
Along the way, there popped up an operational error which resulted in the company sending 20 Ethereum to the unexpected investor. After this realization, efforts were made by the technology firm to try and recover the ETH.
Things did not play out according to expectations. That is considering that the investor decided to cut off all communication which implies that by the end of the day returning the digital currency became an impossible undertaking. The matter was rushed to court for determination. Several charges were leveled against the investor in the hope that justice would be served in a timely manner.
Within a short span of time the court came up with a ruling. It took the stand that the others had no legal grounds and had in fact received improper benefits. According to it, those that had been affected had the full rights to demand the return of the improper benefits.
The company was glad with the decision by the court. Its spokesperson outlined that they had all along expected the court to make a ruling in their favor since they were justified in their appeal. He said that they were looking forward to see the investor return the money with immediate effect.
The investor was not happy with the ruling and thus rushed back to court making an appeal. This investor insisted that the move by the government had been enough to nullify charges leveled against it.
Interestingly, the court maintained its stand outlining that even though digital currencies did not qualify as fiat currency they bore the same protection under property rights.
