The Supreme Court of Thailand ruled that Bitcoin is property, maintaining a 10-year prison sentence

The Supreme Court of Thailand ruled that Bitcoin can be recognized as property in robbery cases and rejected a defendant's claim that the cryptocurrency itself has no value and therefore cannot constitute property. The court upheld the sentence of 10 years in prison for the accomplice to the robbery.

The incident occurred in September 2022 on Koh Samui. A victim was threatened and beaten by five foreign men and was forced to exchange $50,000 for approximately 2.48 Bitcoins, at a time when the price of Bitcoin was around $20,000. The Supreme Court's full bench concluded that Bitcoin has a market price, can be exchanged for cash when there are buyers, and can be held by the public; converting funds into Bitcoin does not diminish its value and does not exclude its property attributes. The court summary stated that the transferred funds have value as property, thus meeting the elements of property crime.

The judge cited Thailand's 2018 Digital Asset Business Act, which defines cryptocurrency as electronic data created and used as a medium of exchange on the internet. The court also considered a letter from the Bank of Thailand stating that cryptocurrencies do not qualify as legal tender, but concluded that this status does not prevent Bitcoin from being recognized as property in criminal cases. According to local media Bitcoin Addict, the assailants confronted the victim and his wife in a café, threatened the safety of their family, and forced the transfer after the assault, with the defendant assisting in arranging transportation and accommodation. The original sentence from the first-instance court was 15 years, but was reduced by one-third to 10 years due to the usefulness of the evidence provided by the defendant in the litigation, and ordered the return of the Bitcoin to the victim.