A court in the State of Florida, US, has recently issued a judgement in relation to a money laundering case. The money laundering aspects are not relevant to this post – instead, what is interesting is how the judge viewed bitcoin.

Bitcoin is relevant to the case since that is how the allegedly fraudulent transactions were being conducted. The full judgement is available here http://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article91701087.ece/BINARY/Read%20the%20ruling%20(.PDF)

The judge ruled that bitcoin is not money, and hence any prohibitions on money transactions, such as might include money laundering, could not apply to bitcoin. The judge said that while bitcoin had some attributes in common with what we commonly refer to as money, it differs in “many important aspects.” Continue reading →