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Comment by jackgavigan | Hacker News Reader

Bitstamp is domiciled in the UK. https://www.bitstamp.net/about_us/

UK law prohibits handling stolen goods. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/22

But does the English law recognise bitcoins as "goods"?

Bitstamp Limited is registered in the UK, but the trading address is a proxy run by UK PLC (http://www.ukplc.com/contact-us.html)

Bitstamp is owned by a couple of Slovenian chaps:

https://www.duedil.com/company/08157033/bitstamp-limited/peo...

https://twitter.com/nejc_kodric

https://twitter.com/damijanmerlak

The question, as msantos points out, is whether bitcoins are money or goods. If they are money, then handling stolen bitcoins are not illegal, and the rightful owner of them doesn't even have the support of the legal system to get them back: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemo_dat_quod_non_habet

I would argue that bitcoins are money, and not goods. Goods have use value, bitcoins do not - they only have exchange value. They have no use in and of themselves.

TL;DR: Even if you can prove that someone else holds a dollar bill that was stolen from you at some point, you do not necessarily have the right to get it back.

I agree, but people have found some pretty creative "use values" for bitcoins:

http://www.righto.com/2014/02/ascii-bernanke-wikileaks-photo...

tl;dr by sending bitcoins to an fake address, you can use put an ASCII Ben Bernanke in the Blockchain.

I wouldn't say that is related to bitcoins (the currency). They've just put data into the blockchain. The tokens you and I trade as money (bitcoins) don't get a use value because someone has put ASCII art into the blockchain.

I'd argue differently because the bitcoins are destroyed in the process. In my view, they become the ASCII art. But I suppose it could just as easily be said that you purchased ASCII art hosting from the blockchain.

I see your point. I guess I just think it's insufficient that it has some use value, for it to be called a good instead of money. My point is that they are mainly (almost entirely) money.

I mean, US dollar bills can also be stacked together and lit on fire, thereby having use value as firewood, or you can write notes on them, making them a notepad, but they are still money because their exchange value completely dwarfs their tiny use value (if one can quantify such things).

I'd argue bitcoin falls into the same category.

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