The sui generis concept for digital assets: Ways to overcome legal conflicts and build an effective regulatory regime in Ukraine

This study aimed to develop a comprehensive model for reforming Ukrainian legislation on digital assets. The research methodology was based on doctrinal analysis and the formal legal method. These methods were applied to examine sources including the national legislation of Ukraine, key regulatory and strategic documents of leading international jurisdictions, as well as analytical reports produced by international organisations. The main results confirmed the existence of a profound conceptual crisis in Ukraine, caused by the inconsistency between the category of a “digital thing” and the intangible nature of digital assets. It has been established that this legal fiction leads to systemic legislative contradictions, the invalidity of the relevant law, and the practical impossibility of applying traditional property-law (vindication, negation) and procedural (arrest, foreclosure, inheritance) mechanisms for the protection of rights. This situation creates a legal vacuum and generates risks for users, particularly against the background of low levels of digital financial literacy among adults. A three-level model for reforming the legal regulation of digital assets was proposed. At the doctrinal level, a revision of fundamental civil law categories was envisaged in order to distinguish digital assets as an independent type of intangible goods that are not subject to traditional property-law structures. At the substantive level, a rethinking of the content of special legislation was proposed through a transition to a functional classification of digital assets. At the procedural level, the development of special mechanisms for the investigation, arrest, foreclosure, transfer, and inheritance of digital assets was proposed, taking into account their intangible and distributed nature. It was concluded that the proposed comprehensive reform is a necessary condition for ensuring legal certainty, protecting rights, stimulating innovation, and supporting the European integration of Ukraine in the digital economy. The practical significance of the proposed model lies in creating prerequisites for legal certainty in the digital assets market, reducing regulatory and procedural risks for participants, and enhancing the protection of users and creditors