From a legal point of view, both parties can sell bitcoin and redistribute the funds, or they can directly split the encrypted assets.
Written by: Jeff Benson
Translation: Lu Jiangfei
According to the celebrity publication “Page Six”, American socialite Kim Kardashian West (Kim Kardashian West) and rapper “Kay” Kanye West (Kanye West) ushered in after six years of marriage “The seven-year itch”, the two are now on the verge of divorce.
This news is enough to shock the U.S. and even the global entertainment industry. People seem to be interested in this upcoming “marriage defense war”. However, for people in the cryptocurrency industry, their focus seems to be somewhat different from the entertainment industry. Because Kim Kardashian owns Bitcoin!
In July 2018, Matthew Roszak, the chairman and co-founder of blockchain technology company Bloq and the founding partner of Tally Capital, publicly gifted Kim Kardashian 1 Bitcoin. The value of this bitcoin is approximately US$8,000. At the time, Matthews Roszak admitted that giving away bitcoins was more symbolic because US$8,000 was insignificant compared to Kim Kardashian’s income.
On July 30, 2018, Matthews Roszak wrote on Twitter: “The first @cityofhope charity poker tournament is so fun. I gave 1 Bitcoin to Kim Kardashian, and it was her The first Bitcoin I own.”
When talking about Kim Kardashian’s divorce, Matthews Rosezak said: “Although I know that Kim Kardashian and Kanye both have huge assets, I can be sure that their Assets have definitely not doubled in the past two and a half years, and now the price of Bitcoin has exceeded US$33,000!” (Chain Wenzhu: According to CoinGecko data at the time of writing, the price of Bitcoin is US$34,780.64.)
Regardless of the value of Bitcoin, Kim Kardashian will definitely raise this asset in the divorce proceedings.
California attorney Norman Fernandez explained: “In California, unless Kim Kardashian and Kanye West have a prenuptial agreement, it will be treated as joint property of the husband and wife,” (According to: Kim Kardashian Daishan and Kanye West did make a prenuptial property agreement, but it is not clear whether their prenuptial statement mentions or involves Bitcoin.)
Common property refers to the income or property obtained after marriage, at which time spouses will own it equally. Therefore, the common property can be divided as part of the divorce.
Bari Weinberger, a partner of Weinberger Divorce & Family Law Group, a law firm specializing in divorce lawsuits, explained in 2019 on the division of cryptocurrency assets in divorce. He said that there are two divisions in divorce. Ways of cryptocurrency assets:
- The first strategy is: you can choose to sell bitcoin directly and divide the dollar funds you get. However, given the long divorce process and the high volatility of Bitcoin (for example, the value of Bitcoin last month was less than $20,000, but it has now broken through $35,000), so selling Bitcoin directly may not be the best option Strategy. Of course, Bitcoin may eventually be shorted. In addition, the sale of Bitcoin will also raise tax issues.
- The second strategy is: you can create an independent digital wallet for the other spouse, and then distribute the evenly divided bitcoins to the other’s digital wallet. This is because digital assets are different from other assets (such as paintings or houses). In contrast, Bitcoin can be easily divided without being sold.
Of course, this may just be our wishful thinking for Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, and it is also assumed that Kim Kardashian has not forgotten the key to the Bitcoin… When Kardashian was still in control of the donated bitcoins, Matthews Roszak replied: “I don’t know, and what I said at this time seems a bit inappropriate.”
It is worth mentioning that Matthews Rosezak also gifted Bitcoin to Virgin Atlantic founder Richard Branson and former US President Bill Clinton.
There is another situation that is very “interesting”. What if Kim Kardashian finds that the Bitcoin is “really fragrant” after getting the Bitcoin, and then buys more Bitcoin without Kanye’s knowledge. Do it? In fact, lawyer Kanye can ask Kim Kardashian to provide bank and credit card statements to determine whether she buys digital assets on cryptocurrency exchanges such as Coinbase, and lawyers can also ask Kim Kardashian to provide keys to Confirm the purchase transaction.
In response to divorce proceedings involving crypto assets, two lawyers, Richard West and Jonathan Fields, wrote articles for the Journal of the American Association of Marriage Lawyers in 2020, they wrote : “If the court has personal jurisdiction over the other spouse, then the spouse can provide a private address, just as the court can order them to provide an account login and password.”
In fact, this is not just an academic issue. In February 2018, there were reports of a series of marital disputes in the United Kingdom. Many divorced couples were worried that their partners would use cryptocurrency to hide private assets. From this perspective, Kim Kardashian may also want to know if Kanye has “secretly” purchased cryptocurrency-this rap is reported to have praised the creator of Bitcoin when he participated in the Joe Logan podcast in October 2020 Satoshi Nakamoto, he said that Satoshi Nakamoto is a visionary and truly liberated the United States and even all mankind.
The question now is: Did Kan Ye buy Bitcoin? Did he invest all his money in the “half-slapped” US presidential race?
Another problem is that the current Bitcoin price is rising, but if the Bitcoin price drops, how should the divorced couple deal with this “asset loss” problem?
In law, there is a word used to describe the wasted or loss of marital property, and that is: dissipation. Sometimes there are many ways to “dissipate”. For example, Kanye needs money to run for the president of the United States. He will “dissipate” family assets in political campaigns. As Richard West and Jonathan Fields pointed out-in theory, buying bitcoin is also considered a kind of household property “dissipation” behavior, a bit similar to gambling, because the bitcoin market is particularly In turmoil, some courts may regard the loss as “dissipation” of marital property.
Considering the soaring price of Bitcoin today, Kanye and Kim Kardashian should not encounter this problem.
The cryptocurrency industry will occasionally “gossip”, please continue to pay attention to the Kardashian family, let us take a look at the end of this Bitcoin-related divorce farce!
Source link: decrypt.co
