While countries all across the world are having difficulty categorising cryptocurrencies, the Singapore High Court, on the other hand, recognised cryptocurrency as “property” in a recent decision. A proprietary injunction against an unidentified person suspected of stealing was also issued by the court. Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), each valued at around $7 million, were among the stolen cryptocurrencies.
Singapore High court verdict
In January 2021, the plaintiff granted one of his colleagues’ access to his safe. The safe contained the “recovery seed” to his digital (crypto) wallets for recovering the passwords. The very next day, the victim discovered that his crypto wallets had been robbed of crypto assets valued at roughly $7 million.
The plaintiff suspected that the First Defendants (the unknown individuals who removed the Stolen Cryptocurrency Assets) received the recovery seeds from the safe and utilised them to transfer the Stolen Crypto Assets. The Stolen Crypto Assets were moved to digital wallets housed at two crypto exchanges with operations in Singapore, according to the plaintiff’s investigations and tracing attempts (the Second and Third Defendants).
The crypto exchanges have been asked to produce the materials that will aid in asset monitoring by the court. A worldwide freezing order was also issued against the unnamed defendants by the judge.
What Singapore High court verdict meant for cryptocurrency
As a Southeast Asian country, the crypto world is ready to recognise and protect cryptocurrency as properties. In addition, even if the offender’s name is unknown, courts are willing to award proprietary injunctions against digital asset theft. It simply means that the court recognises cryptocurrency as property.
It demonstrates that courts are willing to issue disclosure orders in the case of crypto exchanges. This also gives the victim of crypto theft access to crucial information, allowing them to freeze and track the stolen funds. Crypto exchanges must cooperate with court orders requiring them to reveal information about user accounts or to freeze cryptocurrencies held by a user.
