Petersburg City Court called cryptocurrencies a means of payment

The St. Petersburg City Court upheld the decision of the court of first instance, according to which 55 million rubles in cryptocurrency were included in the amount of damages in the robbery case.

In 2020, the Petrogradsky District Court received a case about intruders who, under the guise of law enforcement officers, threatened to extort money from an entrepreneur. At the time of the guilty verdict, the court ruled out the theft of cryptocurrency from the prosecution because it considered that digital assets were not the subject of a crime.

The court of first instance then referred to the provisions of articles 129, 208 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation and the note to article 158 of the Criminal Code, stating that cryptocurrency refers to surrogates of money.

However, on appeal, the public prosecutor drew
Attention is drawn to the fact that the court unreasonably excluded from the scope of the charges brought the crypto-currency stolen by the defendants for more than 55 million rubles. The prosecution expressed disagreement with the conclusion of the district court that cryptocurrency is not the subject of a crime against property due to its lack of legal status. The representative of the prosecutor’s office drew attention to the fact that, in accordance with Article 182 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, cryptocurrency is “other property” and an object of civil rights related to a variety of digital currencies (electronic money), “accounting for internal units of account of which is provided by a decentralized payment system operating in a fully automatic mode”.

In June 2021, the decision of the Petrogradsky District Court was canceled by the court of cassation and during the retrial of the case in the first instance in December 2021, the court recognized 55 million rubles in cryptocurrency as “other property”. The judge included this amount in the material damage caused to the victim. The criminal actions of the defendants were reclassified from the article “Extortion” (clause “b” of part 3 of article 163 of the Criminal Code) to “Robbery” (clause “b” of part 3 of article 161 of the Criminal Code).

Since the activity of the victim was related to the management of digital assets, conversion and profit making, the court defined: the digital currency that was stolen could be used as a means of payment, investment and savings. Thus, the activity contains economic meaning, and the cryptocurrency has a material value. In addition, digital currencies could be accepted as a means of payment, “while not being the monetary unit of a foreign state and an international monetary or accounting unit.”

The St. Petersburg City Court upheld the new decision of the court of first instance, according to which 55 million rubles in cryptocurrency were included in the amount of damages in the robbery case.

In April 2022, in the United States, the organizers of the “Churches of the Invisible Hand” and “Crypto Churches of New Hampshire” pleaded guilty to involvement in digital asset fraud.