You're a lawyer. What happens if I leave my wallet on the sidewalk and come back an hour later? Should I expect that no one take it? What is my legal recourse? Now let's say I can actually do that and through some magic it's stuck to the concrete right now. Now say, one day, that glue may lift. Is it just of some other group to come around and bury all the unstuck wallets in concrete where no one can get it, including the original owner? Or are they as engaged in theft as the person that just took the wallet.
Replies (3)
Both groups take away access from the rightful owner. Their intentions are moot.
This is a surprisingly complicated question. But each state has abandoned property laws determining how found property can be claimed. It gets even harder when the device itself isn’t the bitcoin rather it’s the information in the wallet I think the law on bitcoin ownership standard of proofs are presently not completely settled short of boring chain of custody arguments. Short of demonstrating chain of custody “possession is 9/10 of the law” as they say. This actually might be an interesting thing to write something up on.
I also didn’t answer your question, but I’m unaware of any precedent that says if property is hard to get to (i.e. only accessible by bad actors) then the right thing is to make it impossible to get to.
