THE LEGAL NATURE OF DIGITAL ASSETS IN CIVIL LAW: AN ANALYSIS OF PROPRIETARY AND OBLIGATIONAL APPROACHES

Abstract

The article examines the legal nature of digital assets in civil law through the prism of proprietary and obligational approaches. The author proceeds from the premise that the development of the digital economy, blockchain technologies, tokenization of proprietary benefits, and the emergence of various types of crypto-assets have raised for legal scholarship the question of whether digital assets may be recognized as property possessing independent economic value and capable of participating in civil circulation. It is substantiated that digital assets do not fit into the traditional legal constructions of tangible things and classical rights of claim, since, although lacking physical form, they nevertheless possess economic value, may be subject to the factual and legal control of a particular person, may be transferred to others, may serve as objects of inheritance, security, bankruptcy, and other private-law relations, and may require protection against interference by third parties. The paper analyzes the main doctrinal approaches to the legal nature of digital assets. On the one hand, they are viewed as an independent proprietary good; on the other hand, they are regarded as a digital form of expression of already existing proprietary, obligational, or corporate rights. Particular attention is paid to the views of V.A. Sadkov, E.D. Chason, J.A.T. Fairfield, M. Abramowicz, R.M. Garcia-Teruel, and H. Simón-Moreno. The author concludes that the issue of recognizing digital assets as property cannot be resolved abstractly or uniformly for all their types. In determining their legal regime, it is necessary to take into account a set of private-law criteria, including independent economic value, the possibility of control, transferability, certainty of legal принадлежность, protection against third parties, as well as the nature of the right underlying a specific digital asset.