Crypto is now property: Britain rewrites the rules

📜 The United Kingdom has adopted the “Property (Digital Assets etc)” Act, which becomes one of the key steps of the country toward modern regulation of the digital economy. The new act officially designates a third category of property – digital assets, including cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and other forms of digital ownership. Thus, crypto assets receive for the first time a clear, legally established status, which significantly simplifies their use in judicial practice and civil-law relations.

The document, published under the title Property (Digital Assets etc) Act 2025, directly states that digital objects may be full-fledged objects of personal property rights. The law contains a fundamental provision:

“Things (including things of a digital or electronic nature) cannot be excluded from being objects of personal property rights merely because they are neither things in possession nor things in action.”

This norm eliminates long-standing legal contradictions and allows the British judicial system to rely on a unified legal framework rather than scattered precedents, as was previously the case. The law took effect on December 2 and applies to England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Its main goal is to modernize the legal system in accordance with the realities of the digital age, where a significant portion of assets exists in intangible form.

The industry organization CryptoUK called the adoption of the act the most important step that increases user confidence and strengthens the legal status of digital assets. Experts emphasize that the United Kingdom has gained a chance to form an international standard for regulating digital assets and stablecoins. However, according to them, this requires more active participation of industry players and acceleration of regulatory processes that still require greater precision and industry involvement.

The adopted law changes the legal landscape of the country by creating a new status for digital assets, which:

• facilitates the investigation of fraud and legal proceedings related to loss of access to crypto assets or ownership disputes;
• forms a legal basis for the inheritance of digital assets;
• strengthens the positions of exchanges, custodial services, and institutional investors;
• increases the competitiveness of the United Kingdom against the background of active crypto market regulation in the United States and the European Union.

This step fits into a large-scale transformation of the United Kingdom’s approach to digital assets. In September, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) announced its readiness to grant crypto companies exemptions from traditional rules, recognizing that the existing financial regulation does not correspond to the specifics of digital assets. At the same time, the regulator aims to tighten cybersecurity requirements following the high-profile hack of the Bybit exchange.

Some time later, the United Kingdom and the United States announced the creation of a joint transatlantic working group on digital asset regulation. It has been tasked with preparing recommendations by March 2026. This underscores the United Kingdom’s intention to build a long-term and coordinated regulatory strategy focused on international cooperation.

In October, the British government introduced a new position – the “digital markets champion”. This high-ranking official is responsible for implementing blockchain into the financial infrastructure, developing tokenization of government bonds, and modernizing wholesale capital markets.

And in November the Bank of England announced that the future stablecoin regulatory system may include limits on their storage: up to 20,000 pounds for individuals and up to 10 million pounds for companies. This shows that the country is moving toward a carefully calibrated regulatory model that combines openness to technology with traditional British caution and emphasis on financial stability.

🔍 The final result of the adopted law is the creation of a solid and modern legal foundation for digital assets, which will allow the United Kingdom to strengthen its position as one of the most advanced and structurally prepared global centers of crypto industry regulation.