Crypto Wins Legal Status In India — High Court Calls It ‘Property’

Madras High Court has ruled that cryptocurrencies can be treated as property, a decision that could reshape how exchanges handle user assets after ￰0￱ court found that certain crypto holdings are identifiable and controllable, and therefore eligible for legal protection similar to other movable ￰1￱ Treated As Property Under Law According to the Madras High Court, crypto-assets meet the basic tests of property because they can be owned, transferred and controlled by private ￰2￱ ￰3￱ Venkatesh said they can be held “in trust,” and that they are neither physical goods nor traditional currency but are property ￰4￱ on reports , the decision relied in part on the Income Tax Act’s definition of “virtual digital asset” under Section 2(47A).

WazirX Hack And The Disputed Holdings Reports have disclosed that WazirX suffered a major security breach on July 18, 2024, when its cold wallet was compromised and about $230 million in Ethereum and ERC-20 tokens were taken. A WazirX user who held 3,532 XRP — valued at roughly ₹1.98 lakh in January 2024 — asked the court to protect her coins from being swept into any pooled compensation arrangement for the stolen ￰5￱ court agreed that her XRP was separate from the tokens stolen in that ￰6￱ Rejects Arbitration Barrier WazirX argued that disputes should go to arbitration in Singapore under its ￰7￱ court rejected that view for this case because the transactions had clear links to India — funds came from Indian bank accounts and the exchange is registered in ￰8￱ was thus left with the Madras High Court, and ad-interim relief was ordered to stop the user’s XRP from being reallocated as part of the hack ￰9￱ This Means For Users And Exchanges The judgment gives a stronger legal basis to individual users to challenge exchanges legally in Indian courts if they feel their funds are misrepresented or ￰10￱ could be required to have a more robust record-keeping regime, clearer segregation of client funds, and direct audit ￰11￱ to reports, judges pointed to technical characteristics of cryptocurrencies — transferability, identifiability and exclusive control — that support the conclusion that legal ownership can be ￰12￱ Tax And Legal Implications Ahead Tax experts are monitoring this ￰13￱ crypto as property matches the way some tax rules currently describe virtual assets in tax codes, and may influence the taxation of gains and transfers in the ￰14￱ is an important decision of a High Court, which has authority, but can be appealed and reviewed by other courts of higher ￰15￱ judgment protects the specific XRP holdings in this ￰16￱ legal fights over other users and different tokens may ￰17￱ image from JSA, chart from TradingView