ABSTRACT
The pending High Court appeal in Poulton v Conrad raises one of the most significant questions yet considered by an Australian court concerning digital assets: whether Bitcoin constitutes property at common law and, if so, whether traditional proprietary remedies such as detinue and conversion are available.
The appeal has attracted competing approaches. The appellant characterises Bitcoin as information recorded on a distributed ledger and argues against proprietary recognition. The respondent emphasises Bitcoin’s practical functionality and the control exercised through private keys. The Federal Commissioner of Taxation approaches the issue through established principles of property law and the long-standing taxation treatment of Bitcoin as property. These competing arguments illustrate the continuing difficulty of applying legal concepts developed for physical assets and bilateral legal relationships to decentralised digital assets.
This article examines the competing submissions and argues that the debate is often framed too narrowly. The more fundamental question is not whether Bitcoin is property in the abstract, but how the law should characterise exclusive control over a digitally scarce economic resource. In doing so, the article considers Bitcoin’s monetary characteristics, its practical operation through cryptographic authentication, and the distinction between legal title and practical control.
The article further explores the implications of the appeal beyond cryptocurrency, including secured lending, insolvency, taxation, estate administration and the operation of the Personal Property Securities Act 2009 (Cth). It argues that the long-term significance of the appeal may lie less in the classification of Bitcoin as property and more in whether Australian law begins to recognise cryptographic control as a legally significant form of control in its own right.
The article concludes that the future development of digital asset law is likely to depend upon legal frameworks that better align proprietary rights with practical control, particularly where control is exercised through private keys rather than physical possession or contractual rights.
Fielder, Helen, Bitcoin, Property or Money? Reframing the Debate before the High Court (June 2, 2026).
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