A French court has ruled Bitcoin is a legal form of money, local newspaper Les Echos has reported. Even though the decision was made by the court on February 26, it has been made public today.
The decision was made as part of a legal battle between the French cryptocurrency trading platform Paymium and the British investment company BitSpread. As it has been reported, Paymium lent the British firm some Bitcoins back in 2014. As we all know, when the Bitcoin Cash hard fork took place in 2017, all BTC owners were entitled to receive the same amount of coins in Bitcoin Cash after the split of the chain. As a result, BitSpread should have returned to Paymium the BCH it had received as well.
The court has ruled that Bitcoin is an interchangeable asset just like money, and as such, it is subject to the same general principles of lending that govern all transactions that involve any type of money.
Based on these principles, the French court has ruled that BitSpread can keep the BCH it received as a result of the hard fork just like investors receive dividends.
Subscribe to our Telegram channel to stay up to date on the latest crypto and blockchain news.