It is completely wrong legally to suggest that in a DPOS blockchain all coins are the property of the elected witnesses.
If that was the case then the witnesses, rather than the owners of the coins would have to pay all the taxes!
There is already plenty of established law that cryptocurrency is property belonging to the legitimate holder of the keys.
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Why is law of ownership being applied to cryptos when the whole point was to own your coins without any state intervening. Your keys your crypto. Not because of the law, because of the code. Your votes your decisions. Including theft. If you are against that then do not vote for witnesses that are ready to steal. If you are 51% attacked and have no choice, fork away. Simple.
You own your gold and silver without any state or bank intervening. Not because of the law but because of chemistry and physics.
That doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't seek legal assistance if it is stolen.
Satoshi created Bitcoin to free us from fiat currencies and banks, not all government and law.
Crypto can achieve the former but never the later.
Even if all fiat currencies disappear and the whole world moves onto crypto and decentralised communities like Hive become the norm on the internet, there will always be a real world of governments, law, police, armies and taxes.
I understand where you're coming from but I think your analogy proves my point, not yours.
If someone steals your gold, you definitely should ask for legal assistance I agree with that. However, the executive order 6102 is the historical moment where the US government decided that you are no longer allowed to hoard gold and should use their notes instead. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102)
This shows that governments have the power to "steal" your money legally! They can give you a note instead of a currency - again, legally! - and then years later sell the gold and leave you with worthless notes. That is stealing, but it is technically agreed by the majority since in a democracy there are elections.
In your analogy, the witnesses are the government, and they are elected by stakeholders (or the people in a democracy). Since the witnesses can pass and execute laws on the blockchain by changing the code, and since they have the approval of the majority (they are elected), why can't they steal your money legally? They can, and did so in the steem case, and with the support of the majority of the voting stake.
In a company, there is a shareholder agreement protected by law and therefore the government that majority shareholders cannot simply decide to vote to steal someone else's shares. However, in a DPoS blockchain, there is no shareholder agreement or contract protected by the state. The only rules are those in the code, and everyone who bought the coin knows this before buying the coin.
If you want to define what the witnesses/Justin did as stealing, I accept that in a conversation, but not in legal terms. I also believe they stole, and went again important principles that they should have respected, BUT they definitely did not break any rules or laws. They simply used the DPoS system, which we all agreed to be a part of.
I would insult Justin Sun gladly, but I wouldn't sue him.