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For the first time, a South Korean court has ruled that Bitcoin does indeed have an economic value. In making this ruling, the court overturned an earlier court ruling which did not recognize the digital currency. The case involves the confiscation of 191 bitcoins.
The original decision was explained by Bitcoin.com News:
The ruling concerns the case involving Ahn who was arrested in May of last year and convicted of operating an illegal pornography site with approximately 1.2 million members. Ahn pocketed 1.9 billion won (~USD$1.78 million) in membership fees. While arresting him, the Southern Gyeonggi Provincial Police Agency confiscated his 216 bitcoins from an online wallet which received some fees from the site.
In September of last year, the court did not recognize bitcoin and ruled that it could not be confiscated, as news.Bitcoin.com previously reported. An official from the court explained that they did not judge bitcoin to have any economic value because it is “in the form of electronic files without physical entities, unlike cash.”
An appeal resulted in today's decision with the court finding that “The crime profit concealment law does not restrict the criminal income to the goods but the cash, the deposit, the stock, and other property with economic value,” Chosun reported and further quoted the court explaining:
“Bitcoin can be changed into money through an exchange. It can be used as a means of payment through merchants, so it should be regarded as having economic value.”
The news hadn't stopped the bleeding Wednesday, however, as most cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, continued to realize a drop in price from Monday highs. Bitcoin Cash was up slightly (2%) from its low Tuesday as of 7:15 pm EST. Bitcoin Core was up around 1.5%. Ethereum was seeing a near 6% rise. For the week, Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Cash were down 10%.
- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com
