| > If it's true that blockchain assets can be seized by courts, it should be pretty easy to find hundreds of cases of such seizures. Well, then... I guess you are right and property rights simply don't apply to blockchain assets. What else can I say? I even sent you a link where US courts/law enforcement explicitly compelled a US company to seize (stolen) blockchain assets... not much more I can say. Furthermore, if you want more examples of seizures of blockchain assets (and, yes, you will find them, if you look for them), feel free to look them up yourself. I mean, how hard can it be to google "crypto seizure"? > We have plenty of documented cases of pickpockets that have been arrested and charged with theft, something that should be very rare because according to you it's nearly impossible to prove that a pickpocket has stolen cash or other random items from a member of the public. Unless you catch him red-handed... yes, it is difficult to prove that the pickpocket stole the money (and from you, specifically). The overwhelming majority of pickpocketing "events" are not caught red-handed and, thus, go unpunished. Pickpocketers tend to be caught more often because they are more exposed and do it frequently (and often in the same places), over and over again. But because pickpocketers are caught more often than hackers, does it mean that property laws apply to pickpocketers and not hackers? No, it just means that (maybe) those laws are more difficult to enforce: not that they don't exist or apply. > And yet how many documented cases do we have of courts having seized blockchain assets? Very, very few. [citation needed] Seriously... did you even try to google for "crypto seizure" before saying this? > The only one that you mention is not even a seizure, is it? Yes, it is (effectively). The entity that issues the (100% USD backed) USDC token basically destroyed/blocked forever the 100 000 USD that were in the hackers token and then minted brand new 100 000 USDC tokens to replace them (but, obviously, didn't send those to the hacker). Effectively, they seized the tokens: they moved 100 000 USDC from the hackers wallet to their own (in practice). Furthermore, this was something done in collaboration with US courts/law enforcement, so... clearly, US courts/law enforcement disagree with your assessment that property rights don't apply to blockchain assets. Make of that what you will. > Not to mention USDC is not a normal blockchain asset, being centrally issued, and therefore controlled by a single entity. Ah, yes... the "no true scotsman" fallacy. I like that one. What makes USDC not a normal blockchain asset? It is an asset, that exists on a blockchain (or, several, actually), that can be easily (and in a decentralized/permissionless) way be used just like any other asset on (e.g.) Ethereum (you can lend, borrow, buy, sell, exchange it, without anyone's prior permission). The only particularity about it is that it is centrally managed/controlled (and that entity that manages it can, if compeled by a court, seize it arbitrarily, as it has happened before): but that doesn't make it "not a normal blockchain asset"... not all blockchains (or blockchain assets) are decentralized. USDC is currently the 8th biggest blockchain asset (by both market cap and daily trade volume), but I guess (according to you and for some unspecified reason), it's not a "normal" blockchain asset. Sure... let's ignore the fact that, if you look at the top 20 blockchain assets by market cap, at least 4 of them are completely under the control of a single entity. "Blockchain" doesn't imply "decentralized blockchain" and "crypto assets" doesn't imply "decentralized unseizable crypto assets". But, even if it did... does that make property rights simply not apply, just because it may cause a bit of inconvenience when it comes to enforcement? No. And US courts/law enforcement, at least, seem to agree with my assessment. |
You said that a "court can always compel a person to give out their keys under the threat of force". All you have to do, in order to prove your point, is find half a dozen instances in the entire world of a courts that have compelled a person to give out their keys. Then we'll know that you're right, and that blockchain security is a sham.
Until then, and given the complete lack of evidence that this is happening on a regular basis, we have to assume that blockchain assets can't be seized, under normal circumstances, by courts, with the same ease and effectiveness that other assets can be seized with.