Draft of the General Principles of Civil Law: Bitcoin and other virtual properties will officially become rights and be protected by law

The draft of the General Principles of Civil Law has been officially released, and online virtual property and data information will officially become rights. This also means that digital currencies represented by Bitcoin, virtual currencies represented by online game coins, and data information represented by big data will be officially recognized as objects of civil rights.

On June 27, the 21st meeting of the 12th National People's Congress Standing Committee was held in Beijing. The meeting reviewed for the first time the explanation of the "General Principles of the Civil Law of the People's Republic of China (Draft)" proposed by the Chairman's Meeting of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress. Among them, there are provisions for new civil rights objects such as network virtual property and data information, which means that network virtual property and data information will officially become rights.

There are two articles in the draft that involve online virtual property and data information. Article 104: Property includes real estate and movable property. If the law stipulates that specific rights or online virtual property are the objects of property rights, they shall be followed. Article 108, paragraph 2, item 8 of the draft: (Intellectual property includes) data information.

Previously, the relevant provisions of the Constitution and the General Principles of Civil Law on online virtual property were relatively general, but provided room for interpretation: After the 2004 amendment to the Constitution, the protection of citizens' lawful private property was explicitly included in the Constitution. This general provision on lawful private property provided great room for the interpretation of civil law property; the General Principles of Civil Law stipulates: "Citizens' personal property includes citizens' lawful income, houses, savings, daily necessities, cultural relics, books and materials, forests, livestock, and means of production and other lawful property that citizens are permitted to own by law." It does not explicitly include online virtual property in personal lawful property. However, the law does not have a clear interpretation of "other lawful property", which also provides room for its interpretation.

In addition, the central bank's Notice on Preventing Bitcoin Risks issued in 2013 also clarified the nature of Bitcoin, stating that Bitcoin is not issued by monetary authorities, does not have monetary attributes such as legal compensation and compulsion, and is not a real currency. In terms of nature, Bitcoin is a specific virtual commodity that does not have the same legal status as currency and cannot and should not be circulated and used as currency in the market. However, as a commodity trading behavior on the Internet, ordinary people have the freedom to participate in Bitcoin transactions at their own risk.

In recent years, disputes over virtual property have emerged one after another: Is Bitcoin theft recognized by law? How to define online account theft? How to protect rights in case of property leakage of data information? Previously, such cases have been shelved due to difficulties in obtaining evidence and unclear legal lines. For example, in the case of a large number of online account thefts and game currency thefts, most of them rely only on the game manufacturers to protect their rights.

The official release of the draft General Principles of Civil Law has also opened up some legal channels for the above-mentioned issues.

However, there are still many problems to be solved in the protection of virtual property rights, such as pricing. Although there are corporate-operated trading venues for digital currencies such as Bitcoin, these trading venues are almost all private and start-up companies. Not only are there price differences between them, but there are also problems such as credibility. Virtual currencies such as Q coins are just a set of data stored in a computer. One of its characteristics is that it can be copied infinitely, which also raises questions about its true value. Data information represented by big data is even more difficult to price in a market-oriented manner. For example, the data of wheat and soybeans are used in agricultural planning and futures, and the pricing in different application scenarios is different.

This also led to the fact that it was difficult to obtain fair compensation after disputes involving online virtual property occurred.