The UK has formally recognized cryptocurrencies and other digital assets as personal property in a historic overhaul of property law. The new Property Act 2025, which received royal assent this week, clarifies that digital assets, such as cryptocurrencies and stablecoins, can enjoy the same legal protections as traditional property.
In a speech to the House of Lords on Tuesday, Lord Speaker John McFall announced that the Property Bill had received royal assent from King Charles, officially making it law. This means crypto users will be subjected to the same rights and protections as those who own traditional forms of property, such as physical property, stocks, or intellectual property.
UK Law Will Simplify Ownership Cases and Facilitate Stolen Asset Recovery
Under the current English and Welsh law, personal property generally falls into two categories: “things in possession,” which include physical objects like cars or jewelry, and “things in action,” which are intangible rights such as debts. However, digital assets—including cryptocurrencies, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), stablecoins, and potentially other electronic “things”—did not fit neatly into either category.
The new law addresses this by establishing a third category: digital or electronic things, which may be regarded as personal property. As the statute states, a “thing (including a thing that is digital or electronic in nature)” is not automatically excluded from being personal property solely because it does not fall into the traditional possession-or-action categories.
Freddie New, who heads policy at Bitcoin Policy UK and is the CEO of B HODL, views the new property law as a tremendous boon for Bitcoin users throughout the UK.
Following the announcement of the bill’s enactment, the advocacy group CryptoUK offered similar remarks. The group stated, “UK courts have already treated digital assets as property, but that was all through case-by-case judgments. Parliament has now written this principle into law. This gives digital assets a much clearer legal footing—especially for things like proving ownership, recovering stolen assets, and handling them in insolvency or estate cases. That’s why today matters.”
Under UK law, personal property is either a tangible object one can possess or an intangible right one can enforce. Nonetheless, the new law confirms that digital possessions can still be considered personal property, even if they do not appear to belong to either of these established categories.
According to the Law Commission’s 2024 report, digital assets exhibit aspects of both forms of property. Researchers had also found that the lagging legal categorization of such assets had significantly slowed down litigation.
Approximately 12% of Adults in the UK Owned Crypto Assets in 2024
In a separate post on X, CryptoUK stated that the new legislation has created clearer protections for consumers and investors, affording crypto holders a level of certainty similar to that of traditional property holders. The group argued that digital assets are now securely owned, recoverable in the event of theft or fraud, and can be included in insolvency and inheritance procedures.
The law lays a strong legal groundwork for crypto ownership and transfer, which would allow the UK to promote better innovation of financial products, real-world asset tokenization, and secure digital markets, the group added.
Community members also claimed that for private investors, the property law secures their digital wealth, providing legal certainty and stability for companies related to cryptocurrency.
According to the UK’s finance regulator, around 12% of adults owned crypto as of late last year, an increase from 10% previously. The government also announced in April that it would develop a regulatory system for crypto firms, aligning them more closely with traditional finance rules and enhancing the UK’s global standing in the sector.