Chennai, India — In a paradigm-shifting judgment that reshapes how India’s legal system views digital assets, the Madras High Court has ruled that cryptocurrencies qualify as property under Indian law. The verdict, delivered by Justice N. Anand Venkatesh, establishes that while cryptocurrencies cannot be considered legal tender, they are nonetheless assets capable of ownership, transfer, and legal protection.
Investor’s Petition Leads to Legal Precedent
The case began when an investor approached the court after her 3,532.30 XRP tokens, valued at around ₹1.98 lakh, were frozen by the cryptocurrency exchange WazirX following a major cyberattack in July 2024.
The breach targeted Ethereum and ERC-20 tokens, resulting in an estimated loss of $230 million (approximately ₹1,900 crore) and prompted the platform to impose a blanket freeze on user accounts.
The petitioner argued that her XRP holdings were unrelated to the hacked tokens and should not be subject to the same restrictions. She sought relief under Section 9 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, requesting that Zanmai Labs Pvt. Ltd., the Indian operator of WazirX, be restrained from redistributing or reallocating her digital assets during the ongoing restructuring process.
Zanmai Labs contended that its Singapore-based parent company, Zettai Pte Ltd, was undergoing a court-supervised restructuring that required all users to share losses coll
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