Bitcoin on Exchanges Can Be Legally Seized in South Korea, Supreme Courtroom Affirms – Decrypt

South Korea’s Supreme Courtroom has dominated that Bitcoin held on cryptocurrency exchanges could be seized below the nation’s Legal Process Act, closing a authorized problem introduced by a suspect in a cash laundering investigation.

The choice, first reported by Chosun Day by day, confirms that digital belongings saved on exchanges qualify as seizure targets throughout prison investigations, although they don’t exist in bodily kind.

South Korea has one of many highest charges of cryptocurrency possession globally. As of March 2025, greater than 16 million folks—roughly a 3rd of the inhabitants—held crypto accounts at main home exchanges.

The case stemmed from a police seizure of 55.6 Bitcoin, value about 600 million Korean gained ($413,000) on the time, from an alternate account held by a person recognized solely as Mr. A. The belongings have been taken as a part of a cash laundering investigation.

Mr. A later filed a movement for reconsideration, claiming that Bitcoin held in an alternate account couldn’t be seized as a result of it was not a “bodily object” below Article 106 of the Legal Process Act. That provision permits authorities to grab proof or objects topic to confiscation if they’re acknowledged as being associated to a prison case.

The Seoul Central District Courtroom dismissed the movement, ruling that the seizure was lawful. Mr. A then filed an extra enchantment to the Supreme Courtroom in December.

In its ultimate ruling, the Supreme Courtroom rejected the argument that Bitcoin falls outdoors the scope of seizure regulation. “Underneath the Legal Process Act, seizure targets embody each tangible objects and digital info,” the courtroom mentioned, in response to Chosun Day by day.

The courtroom added that Bitcoin, “as an digital token with the power to be independently managed, traded, and considerably managed by way of financial worth,” qualifies as an asset that may be seized by courts or investigative businesses.

“The disposition on this case, which seized Bitcoin below Mr. A’s identify managed by a digital asset alternate, is lawful, and there’s no error within the decrease courtroom’s choice to dismiss the movement for reconsideration,” the ruling mentioned.

The choice is in keeping with a collection of earlier South Korean courtroom rulings which have handled cryptocurrencies as property or belongings. In 2018, the Supreme Courtroom held that Bitcoin is an intangible property with financial worth and could be confiscated if obtained by means of prison exercise. That very same yr, crypto tokens have been acknowledged as divisible belongings in divorce proceedings.

In 2021, the courtroom additional clarified that Bitcoin constitutes a digital asset that embodies financial worth, and is taken into account a property curiosity below prison regulation.

Different jurisdictions have taken related approaches, classifying digital belongings as property for authorized and enforcement functions.

Final month, the UK handed laws formally recognizing digital belongings as property, giving them the identical authorized standing as conventional types of property. The regulation goals to supply clearer steerage for courts dealing with circumstances involving theft, inheritance, and insolvency associated to crypto belongings.

The UK laws builds on suggestions from the Regulation Fee of England and Wales and gives statutory backing to authorized rules that had beforehand developed by means of widespread regulation.

Such measures are meant to enhance readability and enforcement in circumstances involving digital belongings, notably the place prison proceeds and asset restoration are involved.

Etay Katz, head of digital belongings at regulation agency Ashurst, instructed Decrypt on the time that the regulation was “a welcome and well timed statutory recognition of the basic property high quality in crypto belongings.”