UK court recognizes USDT as property following fraud trial

Earlier, a bill was introduced in Parliament to recognize cryptocurrencies as personal property

13.09.2024 - 08:50

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Last updated on Nov 19, 2024

What’s new? The High Court of England and Wales has ruled that the USDT stablecoin from issuer Tether is property, the first-ever ruling on the English law of cryptocurrency status following a court case. The coin’s status was the subject of a lawsuit filed by a fraud victim. The plaintiff’s stolen cryptocurrencies, including USDT, were laundered through crypto mixers and afterward sent to several crypto exchanges.

Court decision

What else is known? Judge Richard Farnhill noted in a September 12 ruling that USDT is subject to property rights under English law. He noted that the decision is consistent with the position of the Law Commission for England and Wales, which identified it as property in its 2023 report on digital assets.

The decision came a day after the UK government introduced a bill in Parliament that would recognize cryptocurrencies, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) as personal property.

UK government has proposed recognizing cryptocurrencies as personal property

The bill has been submitted for consideration in Parliament

Despite this ruling, the plaintiff failed to prove that the Thai exchange BitKub “enriched” itself by receiving 46 291 USDT stolen from him. The judge recognized the fraud, but the exchange’s receipt of the coins from the victim was not justified.

According to a Bitkub representative from Quillon Law, the judge concluded that USDT could be identified in the mixer pools, but the plaintiff was unable to prove that his coins went into Bitkub’s wallet.

In total, the plaintiff transferred $3,3 million to the scammers in multiple transactions. The lawsuit also names Binance, Polo Digital Assets, Gate Technology Corp, Aux Cayes Fintech, and the unidentified fraudsters themselves.

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