Freedom of the Seize: May Government Expropriate Property?

Adapted from the writings of Dayan Yitzhak Grossman

February 5, 2026

Bitcoin Magazine reports:

The U.S. government has taken full legal ownership of more than $400 million in seized cryptocurrency, cash, and real estate tied to Helix, once one of the most widely used bitcoin mixing services on the darknet.

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., entered a final order of forfeiture on Jan. 21, transferring the assets to the government following the conviction of Helix operator Larry Dean Harmon. The forfeiture includes thousands of bitcoin, hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, and an Ohio mansion purchased during the peak of Helix’s operation.

Helix functioned as a cryptocurrency mixer, pooling and rerouting bitcoin transactions to obscure their origins and destinations.

Prosecutors say the service was built to serve darknet drug markets and was directly integrated into their withdrawal systems through an application programming interface (API).

Court records show Helix processed roughly 354,468 bitcoin between 2014 and 2017, worth about $300 million at the time. Investigators traced tens of millions of dollars from major darknet marketplaces through the service. Harmon took a cut of each transaction as operating fees.[1]

This article considers the halachic validity of property seizures by governments.

Eight centuries ago, the Rambam considered the question of whether a man who purchased sfarim that had been plundered from shuls in another city could keep them. He ruled that if the plunder had been by decree of the king, the purchaser may keep the sfarim, but if they were stolen without government sanction, he must return them to their owners (but he is entitled to recoup the price he paid).[2]

In the same vein, the Radvaz discusses the case of a Jew who had been granted certain banking privileges under the jurisdiction of the king. The Jews were expelled from the city, but the pope then conquered it and expelled the expellers. A duke then conquered the city, allowed the Jews to return, and eventually granted the banking privileges to a different Jew, whereupon the first one demanded the return of his privileges. The Radvaz ruled in favor of the second man, based on the principle of dina demalchusa dina (the law of the government is the law, i.e., recognized as valid by halacha), because “the law of kings is that when they conquer a country by military force, all the houses and fields and vineyards are the king’s, and the people, too, are his as indentured laborers.” As the Rambam rules:

Similarly, a king who becomes angry at one of his servants…and takes his field or his courtyard, it is not theft, and one is permitted to benefit from it. One who purchases it from the king, it is his, and the original owners cannot expropriate it from him. For this is the law of all kings, to take all the money of their servants when they become angry at them. So the king annulled their ownership, and this courtyard or this field became as ownerless, so anyone who acquires it from the king owns it.[3]

Further, the Radvaz says, the very lives of the conquered people are forfeit to the crown, and the Gemara declares that “Those executed by the king, their property belongs to the king.”[4],[5]

There is, however, a crucial limitation on the sovereign power to seize property, as the Rambam himself, in the discussion cited by the Radvaz, proceeds to articulate:

But a king who confiscates a courtyard or a field from one of the people of the country by theft, not in accordance with the laws that he enacted, he is a thief, and the owners may expropriate the property from the person who purchases it from the king.

The general principle is: Any law that a king legislates for everyone and does not only apply to one person, is not robbery. But whenever he takes from this man alone—not following the law known to all, but robbing this person—it is theft.

Similarly, Tosfos declares that certain governmental actions in Tosfos’s time that violated established precedent were not valid under the principle of dina demalchusa dina, because they were “completely unfair,” so they were theft.[6] As the Ramban puts it, Chazal endorsed dina demalchusa (of the government—i.e., laws that are in accordance with established precedent and tradition), but not dina demalka (of the king—i.e., his arbitrary dicta).

(Much later, American Revolutionary thought adopted a similar view. John Adams famously explained that a republic is “a government of laws, and not of men,” as opposed to an empire, where “the maxim is quod principi placuit legis habet rigorem (what pleases the prince has the force of law).”[7]

Some Rishonim go so far as to limit the principle of dina demalchusa dina to existing, traditional laws, and maintain that a king has no right to institute new laws;[8] others disagree.[9] Some Acharonim explain that even according to the first view, a king is certainly allowed to enact new legislation in general; he is only restrained from making enactments that are perceived by the upright as unjust,[10] or that exceed the scope of the mandate granted to the original government (from which the current one derives its authority) by the people.[11] (In modern terms, the power of the government is limited by some notion of constitutionality.)

In light of the above, although the traditional halachic concept of fairness does not preclude discrimination against particular groups, including Jews,[12] perhaps government actions motivated by an ideology as monstrous as Nazism would be considered illegitimate according to all views. Indeed, R’ Yehudah Silman considers it self-evident that dina demalchusa dina does not apply to the nationalization of property by Germany during the Holocaust.[13]

[1]Micah Zimmerman. U.S. Government Takes Control of $400M in Bitcoin, Assets Tied to Helix Mixer. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/news/u-s-takes-control-of-400m-in-bitcoin.

[2]Pe’er Hador siman 131. Cf. Hilchos Avadim 9:4.

[3]Hilchos Gzeilah Va’aveidah 5:13-14.

[4]Sanhedrin 48b. The Radvaz’s application of this rule is quite puzzling, because (as Rashi explains) the rule would seem to refer to criminals or traitors, not civilian populations conquered in war. Moreover, Rashi specifies that the rule is referring to those guilty of a capital offense against a Jewish king.

[5]Shu”t Radvaz cheilek 3 siman 968 (533).

[6]Tosfos Bava Kama 58a s.v. Ee nami.

[7]Excerpted from The Revolutionary Writings of John Adams , Indianapolis Liberty Fund, 2000.

[8]Chidushei HaRamban Bava Basra 55a; Remah, cited in Tur C.M. siman 369 (see Bais Yosef there).

[9]Rosh, cited in Tur ibid.; Sefer Hatrumos sha’ar 46 cheilek 8 os 5. Cf. Magid Mishneh Gzeilah 5:13-14; Shu”t Maharik shoresh 66; Shu”t Radvaz ibid.; Shu”t Lechem Rav siman 157 s.v. Nimtze’u.

[10]Chazon Ish C.M. Likutim siman 16 os 9 s.v. Vehinei kasvu Rishonim z”l.

[11]Amud Hayemini siman 9 os 10 p. 53.

[12]Shu”t Maharik shoresh 194 (codified by Rama C.M. 369:6); Shu”t Tumas Yesharim siman 16 (cited in Divrei Geonim klal 25 os 9); Shu”t Maharsham cheilek 7 siman 34.