VIRTUAL ASSETS AS OBJECTS OF CIVIL RIGHTS

The paper examines virtual assets, with crypto-assets as the principal example, as objects of civil rights under the legislation of the Republic of Uzbekistan. Drawing on Articles 81 and 82 of the Civil Code and on the special regulation of crypto-asset turnover, the author argues that a crypto-asset cannot be fully qualified as a thing, information, a result of intellectual activity or a security, and should instead be regarded as a distinct type of property right of a digital nature, the existence and circulation of which are ensured by distributed ledger technology. The essential features of crypto-assets are identified: a digital form of existence, proprietary character, economic value, the presence of a specific holder, technological dependence on the distributed ledger, special (regulated) transferability and heterogeneity of legal content. Particular attention is paid to the differentiated regulation of backed, unbacked, stable and non-fungible tokens, as well as to the special legal regime for stable tokens as a means of payment introduced in 2026. It is concluded that the Civil Code should be supplemented with provisions on digital property objects governing the emergence, ownership, transfer, inheritance, pledge, enforcement and protection of rights to crypto-assets. The paper has been prepared as part of the approbation of the author's dissertation research on "The Civil-Law Regime of Incorporeal Things".