Meeting of the Parliament 05 March 2026 [Draft]
The Digital Assets (Scotland) Bill is a narrow bill that defines the existence of digital assets in Scottish law. That is necessary because of the absence of a body of case law that covers the matter. The bill clarifies that digital assets are capable of being treated as property and owned within our legal framework.
The bill responds to expert recommendations from the digital assets in Scots private law expert reference group and others. Their work has highlighted the gaps, risks and practical challenges that arise with attempts to categorise digital assets in our long-standing legal framework. The bill draws directly on several of their recommendations, especially those on defining digital assets and clarifying the principles of ownership and control. Their expertise has shaped much of the bill’s structure and rationale.
The bill seeks to be technology neutral and future proof. It establishes a legal baseline that will need to have frameworks of regulation and guidance built on top of it.
I recognise that “digital assets” is a very broad category in relation to what the bill will now allow us to legally consider as things. Some can have positive and constructive impacts on our society, whereas some might be harmful or at least risky. I am sure that colleagues share my distress at the energy-intensive nature of bitcoin mining, for example. At a time when we are racing to electrify our industry and transport to try to keep ahead of a collapsing climate, the fact that so much energy is being used to generate speculative assets that can be used to avoid taxation, bypass legislative safeguards and otherwise undermine the reliable and transparent operation of our economy is clearly a cause for concern.
Digital assets are evolving rapidly, and our legislative response will need to be sufficiently dynamic to manage the risks that increased use and legitimacy of digital assets, such as blockchain-based currencies, bring. As I said in the stage 1 debate on the bill, I believe that such currencies, if unregulated, present a significant risk to individual investors and to the structure of our banking system, and that robust regulation will be required to mitigate those risks. The Scottish Government, like other Governments around the world, will need to be informed and proactive to keep ahead of those risks. They are too great and too closely linked with fundamental elements of our economy and banking system for us to wait for a crisis before acting.
Members of the Economy and Fair Work Committee enjoyed taking evidence on the bill and attempting to get our heads around the technical and legal challenges and opportunities that digital assets present.
The Scottish Greens will support the bill at stage 3, but we expect the Scottish Government to move quickly to provide guidance and further legislation to address the broader risks that digital assets present.