ownership

In January 2026, CIEL Deputy Director Professor @Yueh-Ping (Alex) Yang co-authored the book chapter “Control and Ownership of Digital Assets: Taiwan” with Professor Meng-Shiang Lin of Ming Chuan University.  It is included in Control and Ownership of Digital Assets, edited by Mirjam Eggen, Linda Jeng, and Sebastian Omlor.

Legal Characterization of Virtual Assets under Civil Law: The Trend toward Personal Property

• Legal characterization: Although Taiwan has not yet enacted a special private law statute governing virtual assets, judicial practice has gradually formed a consensus characterizing virtual assets as personal property under the Civil Code.
• Determination of possession: Courts tend to regard the actual knowledge of private keys or seed phrases as the core criterion for establishing actual control and powers of disposition. This approach is broadly consistent with the UNIDROIT Principles on Digital Assets and Private Law.

Custodial Relationships and Allocation of Rights: Application of the Deposit Contract

• Legal relationship: Where traders hold virtual assets through custodians, current regulations and court decisions generally characterize the relationship between customers and custodians as a deposit contract under the Civil Code.
• Ownership attribution: Under Taiwan’s Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) registration regime, enacted in 2024, ownership of the virtual assets remains with the customer, while the custodian is deemed the direct possessor. The customer retains the status of indirect possessor and holds a right to request the return of their virtual asset.

Limits of the Personal Property Framework and the Proposed Ledger-Based Approach

• Doctrinal debate: While Taiwanese courts tend to classify virtual assets as personal property, a majority of scholars conceptualize virtual assets as intangible property rights.
• Challenges of publicity: Defining “possession” by reference to the knowledge of private keys or seed phrases fails to generate the level of publicity and observability traditionally required for possession under property law.
• Legislative proposal: The chapter suggests that the transfer and publicity of rights in virtual assets would be better grounded in a ledger-based system, using distributed ledger records as the basis for rights attribution, thereby addressing the deficiencies in publicity and reliability associated with key-based control.

This research not only presents the current state of Taiwan’s private law framework for virtual assets, but also proposes forward-looking institutional designs that may inform future legislation and judicial practice. The information of the book is as follows: https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/book/control-and-ownership-of-digital-assets-9783162001344/.

CIEL will continue to engage with the intersection of virtual assets, financial technology, and private law, fostering in-depth dialogue and international collaboration in emerging areas of technology law.