Time for Rethinking?

Non-Fungible Tokens and Ownership Rights from the Hungarian Point of View

Abstract

The study focuses on the examination of the most fundamental concept of civil law, especially the right in rem, namely the concept of things. The author seeks to answer the question of how new phenomena appearing because of technological development, such as digital assets, including various crypto assets like tokens, can be integrated into the system of classical civil law, whether they may be subject to property rights or the civil law rules applicable to the property.

To answer this question, the author first explores the concept of things based on the old Hungarian private law literature and the provisions of the earlier and current Hungarian civil codes, presenting contemporary private legal opinions. Then, she deals with the legislative extension of the rules governing things and reviews which assets have been subject to a possible revision of the conceptual framework of the thing. The author pays particular attention to the examination of digital assets, defining and classifying tokens based on the MiCA regulation recently adopted by the European legislator. In the final part of the study, the author deals with the category of non-fungible tokens, highlighting the problems that are currently identifiable and clearly need to be solved in the future.