In Korea, the court recognized that accidentally received cryptocurrency does not need to be returned to the person who made a mistake

The Supreme Court of South Korea has dropped all charges against the owner of a cryptocurrency wallet who accidentally received almost 200 BTC.

According to the South Korean court, the country’s laws do not contain provisions for criminal punishment of a person who received crypto assets by accident. Accordingly, the accidental recipient will not be prosecuted and forced to return the funds.

Recently, a resident of South Korea received 199 BTC to his wallet, which was sent to him by mistake. the «lucky man» decided not to return the funds but to use them at his own discretion. At first, the judge found the user guilty and ordered him to return the bitcoins. However, the Supreme Court overturned all charges and stated: «According to the relevant laws, crypto assets are not subject to the same rules as fiat currency. The laws that apply to fiat currency do not apply to crypto assets,» the court explained its decision.

Accordingly, 200 BTC now belong to the user who received them by mistake, and the court can only advise the previous owner to be more careful next time. Incorrectly entered cryptocurrency wallet addresses are also costly for large companies. For example, a user recently received 20 million OR due to a mistake made by Wintermute, a crypto provider, who entered the wrong address of his wallet to which the Optimism team was supposed to transfer cryptocurrency.