On 14 January 2026, the UK Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) delivered a landmark judgement on whether virtual “gold pieces” — in-game currency within a video game — qualify as “property” for the purposes of section 4 of the Theft Act 1968.

Background

The game

Old School RuneScape is a role-playing game developed and published by Jagex Ltd. Each player operates an avatar, interacting with other players and non-player characters. A central part of gameplay involves building in-game wealth to enhance an avatar’s capabilities and unlock further quests.

Players gain wealth by earning tokens that can be exchanged for gold pieces, usually through in-game activities such as woodcutting or mining. Gold pieces can be traded between players either for other virtual items (e.g., cloaks, amulets) or transferred directly.

Although Jagex’s EULA strictly prohibits real-world trading, gold pieces nonetheless have a real-world market value and are routinely bought and sold outside the game.

The heist

Andrew Lakeman, a Jagex content creator without authorisation to access player accounts, used login credentials belonging to the company’s account recovery team to unlawfully access 68 player accounts containing significant in-game wealth. He removed approximately 705 billion gold pieces, selling them off-platform for Bitcoin and fiat currency. The estimated real-world proceeds amounted to £543,123.

This situation raised a key question: Can you be accused of theft in the physical world for stealing virtual golden pieces that only exist in a virtual environment?

The judgement

From a legal perspective, the technical question was whether virtual golden pieces can be considered “property” and therefore, “stolen”.¹

To answer this question, the Court applied the Ainsworth criteria, by which a right or an interest can be admitted into the category of property, or of a right affecting property, if it is definable, identifiable by third parties, capable in its nature of assumption by third parties, and has some degree of permanence or stability. The Court considered that the golden pieces met all and each of these conditions.

The Court also considered whether the gold pieces were rivalrous, a concept emphasised in the Law Commission’s reports leading up to the Property (Digital Assets etc) Act 2025, which came into force in December 2025. According to the Commission, an asset is rivalrous if use or consumption by one person necessarily prejudices use or consumption by others.

Applying this definition, the Court found that gold pieces are indeed rivalrous: once a player uses or consumes them in-game, they cease to exist and cannot be used by anyone else.

As a result, the Court concluded that Old School RuneScape gold pieces constitute “property” within the meaning of the Theft Act 1968, and therefore can be the object of theft.

Implications

This ruling strongly indicates that in-game assets or currencies are likely to meet the threshold for proprietary protection under English law. While the Court emphasised that classification as “property” for the Theft Act does not automatically determine treatment under other regulatory regimes, the judgment represents a significant step in recognising digital assets as capable of holding real-world legal value.

The decision may also influence future civil cases involving virtual assets, particularly where courts must assess ownership, misappropriation, or valuation of digital property.

1. Section 1(1) of the Theft Act provides that “A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it”. Further, Section 4(1) provides: “ “Property” includes money and all other property, real or personal, including things in action and other intangible property.” ↩︎