Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] The legal risks of auto-updating wallet software; custodial relationships

From: Peter Todd <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 12:49:45 -0500

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 12:47:04PM -0500, Matt Whitlock wrote:
> On Tuesday, 20 January 2015, at 6:44 pm, Tamas Blummer wrote:
> > Knowing the private key and owning the linked coins is not necessarily the same in front of a court.
> > 
> > At least in german law there is a difference between ‘Eigentum' means ownership and ‘Besitz’ means ability to deal with it.
> > Being able to deal with an asset does not make you the owner.
> 
> So what we're telling the newbies in /r/bitcoin is plain wrong. Bitcoins *do* have an owner independent from the parties who have access to the private keys that control their disposition. That's pretty difficult to reconcile from a technological perspective.

The law concerns itself with what should be done, not what can be done.

Bitcoin the technology doesn't have a concept of "ownership" - that's a
legal notion, not a mathematical one.

-- 
'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org
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