SINGAPORE — The High Court has ruled that a non-fungible token (NFT) is a form of property and not merely information or code on the blockchain.
It has also ruled that it has the jurisdiction to hear cases of dispute involving blockchains despite its borderless and decentralised nature, and that a legal claim can be brought on a person whose identity is hidden behind a pseudonym.
These were the key points from Judge Lee Seiu Kin's grounds of judgement, which the court issued on Friday (Oct 21), on the barring of sale and transfer of an NFT called the Bored Ape NFT — the first court case here which dealt with whether NFTs counted as assets.
The injunction was issued by the High Court on May 13 and was said to be the first in Asia to protect an NFT.
These tokens have a unique digital signature that exists on a public ledger called a blockchain, which keeps a record of all the transactions relating to the NFT.
This digital signature means that every NFT is unique, with no two being alike, meaning that someone can own items such as digital art images and videos.
THE CASE
The claimant in this case is Mr Janesh Rajkumar, a Singaporean who owned an NFT from the Bored Ape Yacht Club. He had used it as collateral for a loan to borrow cryptocurrencies from a Twitter user with the handle “chefpierre.eth”.
The Bored Ape Yacht Club is a set of 10,000 cartoon monkeys made by US-based company Yuga Labs.
Court documents stated that the NFTs within the collection were “hugely popular” and owned by a number of celebrities such as Justin Bieber.
“This, according to the claimant, spoke volumes as to the monetary value placed on NFTs within the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection, and the fact that such NFTs were also status symbols,” Judge Lee said.
Mr Janesh had bought the NFT from another user on Aug 6, 2021 for 15.99 Ether, a form of cryptocurrency. The value of 15.99 Ether as of the time this article is published is about S$30,000.
He would often enter into loan transactions with other users to borrow cryptocurrencies using NFTs as collaterals.
More at https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/bored-ape-yacht-club-nft-blockchain-property-2025711
