Article
Now You See It Now You Don’t – How the UCC Amendments Will Undo Bitcoin’s Brief Status as Money
American Law Institute Advisor
(2022)
Abstract
In my recently published article, How El Salvador Has Changed U.S. Law by a Bit: The Consequences for the UCC of Bitcoin Becoming Legal Tender, I described the consequences for the UCC of El Salvador declaring Bitcoin to be an authorized currency. Among my conclusions, I argued that Bitcoin (but not other cryptocurrencies) must now be treated as money and therefore it would be impossible to obtain a perfected security interest in Bitcoin since the only method for perfection in money is possession and one cannot possess an electronic intangible medium of exchange. During its 2022 annual meeting, the American Law Institute approved proposed Amendments to the Uniform Commercial Code that address application of the Code to Emerging Technologies (the “2022 Amendments”). During its annual meeting July 8-14, the Uniform Laws Commission also approved the same proposed amendments. The original study committee that became the drafting committee for the 2022 Amendments was charged with considering amendments to the UCC to accommodate “emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, distributed ledger technology, and virtual currency.” This article describes the effects of some of the amendments relating to electronic money on cryptocurrencies in general and Bitcoin in particular. Among the 2022 Amendments there is a significant revision to the definition of “money” as well as changes to Article 9’s rules for perfection of a security interest in money. These changes appear to have been prompted by the actions of El Salvador and the transformation of Bitcoin into money for purposes of applying the U.C.C. This article will discuss the revisions to the definition of money and the changes to the perfection rules before offering some conclusions.
Keywords
- Uniform Commerical Code,
- Bitcoin,
- Security Interest,
- Electronic Money
Disciplines
Publication Date
Summer July, 2022
Citation Information
Brian M McCall. "Now You See It Now You Don’t – How the UCC Amendments Will Undo Bitcoin’s Brief Status as Money" American Law Institute Advisor (2022) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/brian_mccall/46/
Creative Commons license
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC_BY International License.