NFT Court Orders Could Become Commonplace

Crypto lawyers are expressing their enthusiasm for NFTs as a viable solution to prosecute blockchain-based crimes that would otherwise remain unresolved.

Last year, there was an uptick in lawsuits filed against individuals for blockchain-related offences in situations where the accused could not be reached by more traditional means.

The usage of NFTs for legal activities has been on the rise, especially in the UK. Then in November 2022, law firm The Crypto Lawyers’ request to serve their client’s defendant via NFT was approved by U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

The defendant isn’t known, but the accusation is that almost $1m has been stolen. The plaintiff solicited a statement from a digital currency investigator with evidence the cryptocurrency had been stolen.

As a result, the judge granted a request to serve the defendant as an NFT, with the judge deeming it a ‘reasonably calculated’ way to serve court documents.

Agustin Barbara, Managing Partner of The Crypto Lawyers, told Cointelegraph that ‘utilizing NFTs to serve defendants is a very effective approach for blockchain crime since it can be almost impossible to detect malicious actors.’

However, with a crypto wallet open and auditable by anybody, sending an NFT to the wallet address where the stolen assets are, one can serve a court order. This is especially helpful when traditional methods, such as sending an email or post to the defendant, are not possible.

UK a Hotbed for NFT Law Proceedings

This isn’t the first case where an NFT has been used to serve court papers. In the U.K. last month, the English High Court allowed the plaintiff to serve the court order via NFT to recover Bitcoin he claimed had been stolen from him.

The plaintiff was the victim of a large-scale fraud through a website called Extick Pro. The scammers conned the plaintiff into creating an account with them and sending cryptocurrency to their sham trading platform.

The plaintiff sent over $1.5m worth of Bitcoin at the time, and the scammers were supposed to be trading for the plaintiff. When he tried to withdraw money, however, it wasn’t available.