I’m looking at it through a legal lens using the entitlement structure model outline by Madeline Morris in her 1993 Cornell Law Review article. People relate to objects (I’m calling a bitcoin an object even though it’s digital) through entitlements. Entitlements are protected by rules, and in this case I am advocating for using a pure property rule to evaluate bitcoin. A pure property rule means the “owner” has the right to monetary compensation for the object, the right to in-kind use and enjoyment, the right to initiate a transaction, and the right to veto a transaction. This is all with respect to another person. So in this sense I see it as being owned by the key holder. Possession is a big part of that, obviously. Perhaps it’s the case that that the keys are the physical instantiation of the bitcoin, but I am not sure we can sever the link between the keys and the coins and say we own one and merry possess the other.

I wish i was back in law school so I’d have time to write a paper on this! I also wrote a law school paper on blockchain and maintaining records of title ownership to land. But a property analysis of bitcoin is way more interesting.