
U.S. Federal District Court Declared Bitcoin as Legal Money - obilgic
https://www.btcnn.com/bitcoin-news/u-s-federal-district-court-declared-bitcoin-as-legal-money/
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GavinMcG
Bitcoin is certainly a subject of interest to HN readers, but this article is
absolutely terrible.

For example: what does this sentence mean?

> The definition Bitcoin that guided the ruling of the district court is based
> on the FinCEN interpretive guide which is noted as not ambiguous for
> understandable.

The news here seems to be that _using_ Bitcoin can meet the definition in 18
U.S.C. 1960:

> (2) the term “money transmitting” includes transferring funds on behalf of
> the public by any and all means...

I'm not a lawyer, but that doesn't seem to require that Bitcoin _be "legal
[sic] money"_, just that it happened to be the medium for moving money around
in this case.

This article is much more clear: [https://ambcrypto.com/bitcoin-btc-qualifies-
as-money-and-fun...](https://ambcrypto.com/bitcoin-btc-qualifies-as-money-and-
funds-rules-us-district-court-for-the-eastern-district-of-michigan/)

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Animats
Actual court decision: [1]

It's not a big deal. The basic decision is that _" this falls within the plain
meaning of “transferring funds on behalf of the public by any and all means,”
such that Stetkiw’s Bitcoin transactions constitute “money transmitting” under
18 U.S.C. § 1960(b)(2)."_ There is a long history of people trying to edge
around laws regulating the handling other people's assets, and they usually
lose in court. So laws in that area are often broadly worded.

It's more interesting to look at PayPal's struggles to avoid being regulated
as a bank.

[1]
[https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mied.332293...](https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mied.332293/gov.uscourts.mied.332293.37.0.pdf)

~~~
ThrustVectoring
Yeah, there's a hell of a big difference between that and legal precedent that
bitcoin counts as currency rather than physical property of some sort.

If someone steals a $20 bill out of my wallet and spends it at a gas station,
I can't go to the gas station and get my $20 bill back, even if I have the
serial number and can uniquely identify it. If someone steals $20 of bitcoin
and spends it at a gas station, then it's within my legal rights to demand the
return of my bitcoin _from the gas station_. This system is obviously
problematic for the use of money to settle accounts, which is why there's 300+
year old legal precedent that bank notes work like currency and not like
property.

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westurner
"Application of FinCEN's Regulations to Persons Administering, Exchanging, or
Using Virtual Currencies" (2013) [https://www.fincen.gov/resources/statutes-
regulations/guidan...](https://www.fincen.gov/resources/statutes-
regulations/guidance/application-fincens-regulations-persons-administering)

"Legality of bitcoin by country or territory"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_bitcoin_by_country...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_bitcoin_by_country_or_territory)

"Know your customer"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_your_customer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_your_customer)

"Anti-money-laundering measures by region"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_laundering#Anti-money-
la...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_laundering#Anti-money-
laundering_measures_by_region)

"Anti-money-laundering measures by region > United States"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_laundering#United_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_laundering#United_States)

