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Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 274.
[Update: For an article based on the transcript, see “Nobody Owns Bitcoin,” StephanKinsella.com (Sept. 20, 2019). See also Pavel Slutskiy, “Yes, You Should Own Bitcoin,” J. Libertarian Stud. 28, no. 1 (2024): 1–19.
Update: See KOL395 | Selling Does Not Imply Ownership, and Vice-Versa: A Dissection (PFS 2022).]
This is my presentation to the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Property and Freedom Society on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2019. Powerpoint slides embedded below. Youtube embedded below.
Also podcast at PFP215.
Some related Q&A is in this session which was held later on the same day: Hülsmann, Kinsella, Dürr, Hoppe, Q&A (PFS 2019) [PFP218].
Related links/relevant material:
- Leon Wankum, “Bitcoin is a Possession, Not Property,” Bitcoin Magazine (Oct. 2, 2023)
- Konrad Graf, Are Bitcoins Ownable?: Property Rights, IP Wrongs, and Legal-Theory Implications [PDF]
- Preston Byrne, What do you legally “own” with Bitcoin? A short introduction to krypto-property
- Marty Bent, “Is Bitcoin a New Type of Property?”, Bitcoin Magazine (Jul. 29, 2022)
- On the Danger of Metaphors in Scientific Discourse
- LeFevre on Intellectual Property and the “Ownership of Intangibles”
- The “If you own something, that implies that you can sell it; if you sell something, that implies you must own it first” Fallacies,
- “The Non-Aggression Principle as a Limit on Action, Not on Property Rights,” StephanKinsella.com Blog (Jan. 22, 2010)
- “IP and Aggression as Limits on Property Rights: How They Differ,” StephanKinsella.com Blog (Jan. 22, 2010)
- KOL085 | The History, Meaning, and Future of Legal Tender
- The Limits of Libertarianism?: A Dissenting View
- KOL249 | WCN’s Max Hillebrand: Intellectual Property and Who Owns Bitcoin
- Cordato and Kirzner on Intellectual Property
- Mises on property
- KOL246 | CryptoVoices: Bitcoin as Property, Digital Goods, Personal Liberty, and Intellectual Property
- See other links at KOL191 | The Economy with Albert Lu: Can You Own Bitcoin? (1/3)
- My facebook post discussing ownership of Bitcoin
- Tom Bell: Copyright Erodes Property?
- Bitcoin Is Officially a Commodity, According to U.S. Regulator
- Tax Plan May Hurt Bitcoin, WSJ
- Swiss Tax Authorities Confirm that Bitcoin is VAT-free in Switzerland
- Tokyo court says bitcoins are not ownable
- FinCEN Rules Commodity-Backed Token Services are Money Transmitters
- Bitcoin Is Officially a Commodity, According to U.S. Regulator;
- Miami Judge Rules Bitcoin Is Not Money; Dismisses Money Laundering, Transmitting Charges
- How to handle bitcoin gains on your taxes
- SEC: US Securities Laws ‘May Apply’ to Token Sales
- Federal Judge Rules Bitcoin Is Real Money
Update: See also this Twitter thread:
Stephan, when can we expect videos from PFS 2019?
I think they are all already out.
It’s an interesting question: how would an ancap society deal with “stolen” bitcoins — for example, those that are brute-forced guessed, perhaps by weak brainwallets (passwords). It /feels/ very similar to accidentally dropping your wallet on a sidewalk, except as was explained in this podcast and elsewhere one doesn’t technically own “them”. Nevertheless, it still seems very unfair that someone should be able to simply take another person’s hard earned money like this. Assuming we knew who “unjustly” took them, would anyone object to the original “owner” initiating reasonable aggression against this individual to try to get them back or be otherwise compensated for the loss?
Love your thoughts. I just now found your blog and diving into it, as a deontic libertarian. I wonder if you heard of Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV), it differs greatly from the one anarchists are controlling which has no value being unscalable.
… Is your question really whether I have heard of BSV? Seriously?