Madras High Court: On Saturday, the Madras High Court gave a historic verdict saying that cryptocurrencies will be considered property under Indian law.
Madras High Court: Madras High Court on Saturday gave a major decision saying that cryptocurrency can be considered property under Indian law. The court clarified that even though cryptocurrency is neither a legal currency nor is it considered a legal tender, it has all the essential properties of property. Justice Anand Venkatesh said that a person can keep cryptocurrency, become its owner and can also deposit it in a trust if he wants. The court said that it is an asset which a person can use for his benefit. This decision is being considered an important step towards giving legal identity to digital assets in India.
What is the whole matter?
This entire matter was related to the petition filed by the investor, whose holdings on the WazirX platform were purchased in January 2024. The applicant had purchased 3,532.30 XRP coins worth approximately Rs 1,98,516 in 2024 through WazirX operated by Janmai Labs. In July of the same year, WazirX announced that its cold wallet had been hacked, resulting in the loss of approximately US$230 million worth of Ethereum and ERC-20 tokens.
Users’ accounts were frozen
After this incident, WazirX froze the accounts of all users. The investor argued that his XRP assets remained safe from the hack and that WazirX had kept them safe in trust. He therefore sought temporary protection from the court to prevent his portfolio from being distributed back. Now the court made it clear in this case that cryptocurrency is also an asset and any person can own it and have rights over it.
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