Iakovlev does not attempt to redefine cryptocurrency. It simply asks the more practical question: where is the asset actually controlled, and where does the relevant legal relationship exist?
Courts are beginning to reject one of crypto’s foundational assumptions: that digital assets exist nowhere, and therefore everywhere.
That idea may hold in theory. In litigation, it does not.
A recent decision from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice — Iakovlev v. Epayments Systems Ltd., 2026 ONSC 1296 — draws a clear line. Crypto assets, at least when held through centralized platforms, are not legally borderless. They are anchored to infrastructure, to servers, and to the entities that control them. That distinction…
