Cryptocurrency – Is it property and why does it matter? – Lexology

Background

The recent High Court of New Zealand decision of David Ian Ruscoe And Malcolm Russell Moore v Cryptopia Limited (in liquidation) [2020] NZHC 728 (8 April 2020) considered the very much unchartered waters of the legal standing of cryptocurrencies as property.

The decision is an interesting one because it is an example of the courts adapting existing legal concepts to new technologies - in this case cryptocurrency. Many would think that cryptocurrencies would of course be property, but the judgment noted that it appeared to be the first occasion on which this issue had been before the courts in New Zealand. Given the novelty of the issue, the court also considered decisions from other courts in England and Singapore. The decision is also noteworthy because it demonstrates practical difficulties which members of the business community may have with new technologies - here it was insolvency practitioners, and how they should deal with cryptocurrencies where there were competing claims to it.

Cryptopia Ltd (Cryptopia) operated a cryptocurrency exchange, allowing users to conduct online trading of a vast range of cryptocurrencies. Cryptopia generated income by charging fees for deposits, trades and withdrawals. Customers of Cryptopia were able to trade about 900 cryptocurrencies, more than any other exchange in the world at the time.

From its establishment to early 2017, Cryptopia operated as a global business with approximately 30,000 users. After the price of Bitcoin more than trebled in around November 2017, Cryptopias user-base increased to more than 900,000. However, in January 2019, a serious hack of Cryptopias servers caused between 9-14% of Cryptopias cryptocurrency holdings (valued at about NZD$30 million) to be stolen. Following the hack, Cryptopia was placed into liquidation while maintaining 960,143 account holders with a positive coin balance, 104,186 of which had a deemed nil value as a result of the hack.

At the time of liquidation, the liquidators estimated Cryptopias holdings of cryptocurrency to be worth approximately NZD$170 million.

In light of the novel legal issues involved and competing claims to cryptocurrency made by creditors and account holders, the liquidators applied to the court for the determination of:

The liquidators needed guidance on those legal issues in order to assess what assets were the subject of the liquidation, and how those assets should be distributed in the liquidation. The liquidators position was further complicated because there were competing claims to Cryptopias assets by its creditors and accountholders.

Is cryptocurrency legal property?

Ruscoe was particularly concerned with the meaning of property as defined by section 2 of the New Zealand Companies Act 1993, namely that: property means property of every kind whether tangible or intangible, real or personal, corporeal or incorporeal, and includes rights, interests, and claims of every kind in relation to property however they arise.

Whether or not cryptocurrency is property is an important issue for legal purposes. If cryptocurrencies are property, then usual concepts of property law would apply to them i.e. for the recovery of coins when they are stolen or fraudulently transferred, for use as a security, as an asset in a deceased estate and whether it can form the subject of a trust. All these are legal concepts which would flow from cryptocurrency being property.

His Honour noted an extract from the UK Jurisdiction Taskforces Legal Statement on Cryptoassets and Smart Contracts:

Why does it matter if a cryptocurrency asset is capable of being property. It matters because in principle proprietary rights are recognised against the whole world, whereas other personal rights are recognised only against someone who has assumed a relevant legal duty. Proprietary rights are of particular importance in an insolvency, where they generally have priority over claims by creditors, and when someone seeks to recover something that has been lost, stolen, or unlawfully taken.They are also relevant to the questions of whether there can be a security interest in a crypto asset and whether a crypto asset can be held on trust.

Given their nature, cryptoassets do not fit squarely within established categories of property.

For those reasons, Justice Gendall was required to consider the issue having regard to the characteristics of legal property, as provided for in the landmark English decision in National Provincial Bank Ltd v Ainsworth. In particular, Justice Gendall noted that: before a right or an interest can be admitted into the category of property it must be definable, identifiable by third parties, capable in its nature of assumption by third parties, and have some degree of permanence or stability.

His Honour considered cryptocurrency in the context of the four requirements for property set out by Lord Wilberforce in National Provincial Bank Ltd v Ainsworth. In doing so, Gendall J states from the outset that he is satisfied cryptocurrencies meet the definition of property in this case, and that his decision accords with the approach adopted in the UK Jurisdiction Taskforces Legal Statement on Cryptoassets and Smart Contracts. His Honour reached these conclusions on the four Ainsworth requirements:

His Honour then went on to consider three recent New Zealand cases which considered various kinds of digital information as property. His Honour referred to:

His Honour noted that in the Dixon and Henderson decisions the courts accepted that the orthodox position that digital information is not property does not apply to cases involving digital assets. In those decisions, digital files were seen as property by distinguishing them from pure information. His Honour concluded that the principles in Dixon and Henderson applied to cryptocurrencies in the current case.

Decision

Simply, the outcome of the courts decision was that yes, cryptocurrency is property within the meaning of section 2 of the Companies Act. His Honour also indicated that cryptocurrency was probably property in the common law sense, although was not required to decide that issue. His Honour concluded that cryptocurrencies constitute intangible, personal property and are clearly an identifiable thing of value.

Were the cryptocurrencies held on trust?

After deciding that the cryptocurrencies were property, His Honour then had to consider whether Cryptopia owned the cryptocurrency, or whether it held the cryptocurrency on trust for accountholders.

His Honour concluded that, in the course of Cryptopias operations, a series of express trusts in favour of account holders arose in respect of their digital assets.

In particular, he found that Cryptopia was a trustee of a pool of each of the 900 cryptocurrencies which were held on the exchange i.e. there was a separate trust created for each type of cryptocurrency. The beneficiaries of each of those trusts were the customers who had cryptocurrency stored on the exchange. In reaching that conclusion His Honour paid particular attention as to how the exchange was operated and the terms and conditions of the exchange itself.

The effect of the decision was that the liquidators held the cryptocurrency on trust for Cryptopias customers, rather than them being assets of the company which would then be available for distribution to the creditors.

Takeaway points

The important takeaways from this decision are:

We are not aware of any Australian decision where the issue of cryptocurrency as property has been considered by a court, however the decision reached a similar outcome to a recent English decision of AA v Persons Unknown & Ors, Re Bitcoin [2019] EWHC 3556 (Comm). The reasoning in this decision is likely to be of assistance to Australian courts when the issue arises here.

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Cryptocurrency - Is it property and why does it matter? - Lexology