ABSTRACT
This article is the second in a series considering the legal classification of Bitcoin in light of two matters presently before the High Court of Australia: Poulton v Conrad and Yeates v The King. Part I examined the competing arguments concerning whether Bitcoin is property, money, information, a digital commodity or a new form of intangible asset. This article takes a different approach. It argues that the difficulty presented by Bitcoin may not be that the common law lacks the tools to recognise digital assets. Rather, the difficulty may be that modern analysis sometimes begins with inherited legal categories before examining the underlying legal relationship. The common law has traditionally proceeded differently. It has reasoned from facts, relationships, commercial expectations, control, exclusion and value before refining the classifications used to describe those relationships. The article argues that Bitcoin does not necessarily require a new theory of property. It may instead require a return to the common law method: identify the resource, examine the relationship between the person and the resource, consider whether that relationship is one which the law should protect, and only then determine the appropriate classification and remedy. Viewed in that way, Yeates and Poulton are not merely cryptocurrency cases. They raise a broader methodological question about how Australian law should respond to new forms of economically valuable resources, including tokenised securities, digital commodities, carbon credits and other assets controlled through digital systems rather than physical possession.
Fielder, Helen, Bitcoin, Property or Money? Reframing The Debate Before the High Court Part II — Following the Logic: Returning to the Common Law Method (June 29, 2026).
[Part I is here.]
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