Cryptocurrency has always been a murky territory as far as the Russian government is concerned. Attempts to establish a regime of regulation for the phenomenon continue, and until then no one is quite sure what to do with people trading coins.
One Russian court may have provided an answer to this after ruling that a debtor’s Bitcoin could be considered property.
The Ninth Arbitration Court of Appeal made a decision yesterday that ordered a debtor to allow a bankruptcy administrator to gain access to his wallet, which was considered part of the estate.
Last year, Alexey Leonov—the financial manager of OOO Rikas Finance—and Ilya Tsarkov were at odds with each other because the latter accrued an outstanding debt of 18 million rubles to the company.
During Tsarkov’s bankruptcy proceedings, which have gone on since October last year, he told Leonov that he has a cryptocurrency wallet on Blockchain.info. This gave Leonov the idea of telling Tsarkov that he could include this wallet as part of the debt collection to help ease things.
Tsarkov disagreed, arguing that cryptocurrency isn’t property, and initially won. After Leonov appealed the action, Tsarkov was told to disclose the amount of funds he had in his account.
Unfortunately for Leonov, the man only has 0.2 Bitcoin to his name, worth today around $1,840.
Initially, the arbitration court looking at the case ruled on February that cryptocurrency could not be included in the bankruptcy. Their reasoning was because of a lack of legislative groundwork that could establish guidelines.
It took a higher court to place digital coins like Bitcoin under the same category with vehicles, houses, antiques, and other valuables that could be appraised and repossessed to repay debts.
Last month, a cryptocurrency bill debated in the Russian Duma was rejected by the government, which sent it back for revision and further discussion.
Today, we are still no closer to seeing a Russian bill that establishes the regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies. However, the appellate court’s decision could help clarify the issue as lawmakers continue to revise the bill.
This article appeared first on Cryptovest