China's legislature releases digital property draft

Rage Review : China's national legislature, the National People's Congress, released the draft text of the Civil Code, which will give legal significance to digital assets. ChinaLedge (a blockchain alliance based in China) and local over-the-counter trading company BitKhan speculated that the definition of digital assets could be extended to blockchain-based assets, while Broad and Bright partner Roland Sun and Chinese media believed that it was not specifically specified as digital currency or Bitcoin. But this is only a matter of time. Chinese legislators need time to classify digital currencies, and then they can make progress on digital currency regulation issues like regulators in the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom and Japan.

Translation: Nicole

The National People’s Congress, China’s national legislature, has released a draft civil code that, if implemented, would give legal significance to digital assets.

Yesterday’s announcement follows reports suggesting that the definition of digital assets could be expanded to include blockchain-based assets, including Bitcoin and other digital currencies, with speculation coming from ChinaLedge, a blockchain consortium based in China, and local over-the-counter trading firm BitKhan.

However, ChinaLedger’s legal director, Roland Sun of Broad and Bright, as well as Chinese media, believe that the draft text currently under discussion does not specifically refer to digital currencies or Bitcoin.

In the interview, Sun said the draft law is intended to resolve the long-standing controversy over property theft in online games.

While he acknowledged that such a definition could be extended to digital currencies, he said there is still a “long way to go” before such a legal definition can be enacted.

Roland Sun

Sun told CoinDesk:

“I don’t think in the next five or six years I’d expect companies to recognize the legal status of property rights in digital currencies.”

However, he said it was only a “matter of time” for Chinese lawmakers to categorize digital currencies, thereby following in the footsteps of regulators in the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom and Japan, which have made important progress in digital currency regulation internationally.

ChinaLedger is a blockchain research and development alliance founded in 2016, led by Wanxiang Blockchain Lab, and mainly focuses on researching blockchain technology.