The status of bitcoin defined In Russia
The Ninth Arbitration Court of Appeal in Moscow has recognized cryptocurrency as property, obliging the debtor to convey to the bankruptcy manager the access to the cryptocurrency wallet to include it in the bankruptcy estate. The plaintiff, financial Manager Alexei Leonov told about this to RBC.
Statement of reasons has not been published yet in the database of arbitration cases, according to the information in the record, the court ordered “to cancel the definition completely and resolve the issue on the merits”. Leonov told to RIA Novosti, that this way the court in Russia has resolved the issue of the status of cryptocurrency for the first time.
Leonov appealed to court due to the disagreements with the bankruptcy victim Ilya Tsarkov, the plaintiff asked the court to include in the bankruptcy estate the wallet at Blockchain.info, about which Tsarkov himself told Leonov. The court did not recognize cryptocurrency as property or other asset, calling it “a set of symbols from the Internet.”
According to newspaper Vedomosti, owned by the family of Demyan Kudryavtsev, Tsarkov has 0.2 bitcoin in his wallet (1.8 thousand dollars at the exchange rate of May 7). Leonov does not know yet how to sell cryptocurrencies, this is decided in court.
The status of bitcoin and other digital currencies are not defined legislatively in Russia. The Ministry of Finance has introduced the draft law in January, where cryptocurrency is not recognized as legal means of payment, but also is not banned.
