The X social media account for Marty Bent and Matt Odell’s popular podcast Tales From The Crypt (TFTC) earned 1.2 million views for a wildly inaccurate tweet about bitcoin (BTC).
According to the podcasters, California “just passed” a bill to “seize BTC left idle on exchanges.” The misinformation claimed the state could somehow assert “unclaimed property” ownership “after three years of inactivity.”
The post was entirely untrue.
What actually occurred is far narrower and far less interesting.
Assembly Bill 1052 passed the California State Assembly this week. It simply applies existing unclaimed property laws to digital assets on exchanges or other custodial platforms.
Rather than a new law allowing the state to confiscate assets or arbitrarily deem them “abandoned,” AB 1052 merely harmonizes digital assets within the same legal framework as traditional assets like bank accounts or safe deposit boxes.
Misinformation about abandoned bitcoin
Under California’s existing unclaimed property laws, which remain unchanged this week, if a user hasn’t performed an “act of ownership interest” (such as making a transaction, accessing the account, or otherwise demonstrating awareness of the property) for three years, the assets may under certain circumstances be transferred to the state’s custody as unclaimed property.
As a general reminder, passage of a bill from California’s assembly to its senate does not enact any new law. Laws in US states only exist once they have passed a bicameral legislature and earned the governor’s signature.
Contrary to TFTC’s misinformation, California may not seize abandoned BTC for its own benefit. Existing laws require the state to hold unclaimed assets in their original forms, not liquidate it to cash.
Again, AB 1052 extends that requirement to digital assets — meaning that the state would have to hold onto BTC, ETH, or other digital assets without liquidating them into USD.
Rightful owners may reclaim their assets at any time by proving their identity and ownership.
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Moreover, before transferring abandoned assets to the state, custodians like exchanges must attempt to contact the owner multiple times. Only if the owner remains unresponsive may the custodian offload any property to the state to hold for additional time.
Without additional comment and more than nine hours later, TFTC embedded a “correction” beneath its original misinformation about BTC. It didn’t delete its original, wholly inaccurate post.
