Chinese Court Claims NFTs Are Protected By Law As Virtual Property

Non-fungible Token (NFT) collections, according to a Chinese court in the city of Hangzhou, are online virtual properties that need to be protected by Chinese law.

An Hangzhou Internet Court article from November 29 that cryptocurrency blogger Wu Blockchain shared on December 5 reveals the NFT-friendly language after the nation started to crack down on cryptocurrencies in 2021, leaving NFTs in legal limbo.

The plaintiff, Wang, declared that he had bought a “blind box of NFT digital collection” sold by Company A through the purchase channel published in the notice and paid 999 yuan after filling out the mobile number and personal information; however, Company A did not deliver and was forced to refund Wang after 10 days.

Vuong said that Company A’s actions violated his legitimate rights and interests, so he sued the court to ask Company A to perform the contract; if it did not perform, it must compensate for 99,999 yuan.

According to the article, NFTs belong to virtual network property and should be protected by the laws of our country because they have the object characteristics of property rights such as value, scarcity, controllability, and traceability.

The court acknowledged that Chinese laws currently do not clearly stipulate the legal attributes of NFT digital collections and decided that it was necessary to confirm the legal attributes of the NFT digital collection for the case.

As a result, the court stated that NFT digital collections belong to the category of virtual property, and the transaction in the legal case is viewed as the selling of digital goods through the internet, which would be treated as an e-commerce business and regulated by the E-commerce Law.

It comes after the Shanghai High People’s Court issued a document in May stating that, despite the country’s crypto ban, Bitcoin is subject to property rights laws and regulations.

Earlier, a Chinese court decided that residents could still trade Litecoin, and it is not being treated as a currency.

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