To put it more clearly.
Your piece of paper or steel with a secret/private key written on it is your property.
One does not and cannot claim property on the specific arrangement of words in someone else’s property (paper/steel).
If someone simply sees your seed phrase and writes it down without committing any crime such as breaking into your home, then they did not steal your property. After all you would still have your piece of paper/steel which is what you own.
We not so much own bitcoin, but rather become the only person able to use/move/spend specific UTXOs. That is if we manage to keep the secret that allows to move/use/spend those UTXOs secret
We are secret bearers at the end of the day. Not land owners
I find this argument pedantic. The property is the UTXO on the bitcoin blockchain not the piece of paper your key is written on...
If they steal your key words and move the utxo to a wallet under their control, they have deprived you of access to your property; commonly known as theft.
You can call it anything you want, but it’s not illogical.
The UTXO set exists on every node that stores the blockchain. Surely you don’t think everyone running a node owns all the UTXOs. Anyone running a node owns the history of the blockchain that is on their hard drive.
Again, no one can own the specific arrangement of words (seed phrase). We can own our piece of paper or steel with those words on it, but not the words or their arrangement on someone else’s property. So if someone sees these words without violating your actual property (house, car, backpack, etc.) then they have not stolen from you. To “own” bitcoin truly is to be the only person that knows how to move UTXOs.
I think the co-mingling of the idea of individual control being necessary and being property is the problem here.
How about this: I find bitcoin to be a commonly held intellectual property that we all possess and can control collectively.
Fair enough. While I think the concept of IP is flawed at best, I understand why people would hold that view given most governments recognizes IP in some form and will use force to protect it.
exactly
Yes, but I feel the same about many other things: Christmas, The United States of America, Lutherans. All things that exist as ideas (IP) that are collectively held and collectively controlled.
Now you are getting it. Some of there are voluntary and others are not. Some are mechanisms of control. IP is just an idea and its a flawed one.
Those are collectively held. Some are privately held: Peanuts. Some have very complex mechanisms of ownership and control: the U.S. Constitution, the bitcoin code.
