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CLARITY draft would prevent self-custodied BTC from being deemed abandoned
The newest Senate text would also bar adverse possession and finder's title claims over self-custodied wallets, while preserving state rules for exchange-held holdings.
A new CLARITY Act draft discussed in a CryptoSlate report would prevent self-custodied digital assets from being treated as abandoned, unclaimed, or forfeitable under federal law, even if owners leave wallets untouched for years.
The draft also aims to block theories like adverse possession and finder's title based solely on wallet inactivity, and it would override state and local approaches that use long periods of inactivity as a basis to transfer ownership.
CryptoSlate reports that the bill expands beyond earlier Senate versions that mainly protected the ability to hold a self-hosted wallet, adding language tied to property law questions about whether the person still owns coins after years of silence.
The article notes that courts would need to separate self-custodied coins controlled via private keys from coins held on exchanges, brokers, or custodians, with state unclaimed-property rules continuing to apply to the latter group.
CryptoSlate says a lawsuit uses New York's lost-property framework to claim title to 39,069 dormant Bitcoin addresses holding about 3.799 million BTC, and the filing estimates that figure is nearly 18% of Bitcoin's total supply.
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