In September 2022, on the island of Samui, a group of criminals forced a tourist to exchange 50 thousand dollars for 2,48 of bitcoin and transfer them to their wallets. Four years later, Thailand's Supreme Court ruled: this is not merely a set of data, but full-fledged property, for the theft of which real punishment is due.
Case No. 4929/2569 became a precedent. The defendant insisted that cryptocurrency has no "intrinsic value" and therefore cannot be considered an object of a crime against property. The full panel of the court rejected this argument, citing the asset's market price and the possibility of its sale and storage by ordinary people. The ruling relies on the 2018 decree on digital assets, in which bitcoin is already defined as electronic data for exchange.
For cryptocurrency owners, this means greater legal protection. If previously thieves could count on the loophole "it's not money and not a thing," now courts are obliged to treat stolen coins as property. In this case, the court ordered the return of either the 2,48 BTC themselves or the equivalent of 1,878 million baht at the time of the crime.
Interestingly, the court clearly separated the concepts: bitcoin is not legal tender, but it is full-fledged property. This matters for those who keep their savings in crypto. The asset is now easier to defend in court, to file a claim for, or to demand compensation for, as with any other valuable.
Such rulings are gradually changing states' attitudes toward digital assets. Where crypto was previously ignored or banned, its economic reality is now recognized. For the ordinary person, this is a signal: if you hold part of your capital in bitcoin, it is no longer "virtual air," but an asset that courts are prepared to protect on par with real estate or stocks.
In the long term, such precedents reduce the risks of owning cryptocurrency and increase its appeal as a tool for preserving wealth. The only question is how quickly other jurisdictions will follow Thailand's example.
