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Federal Judge Rules Bitcoin Is Money In Case Tied To JPMorgan Hack (reuters.com)
Roughly two months ago, a Miami-Dade judge ruled that bitcoin does not actually qualify as money. Now, it appears that bitcoin does indeed qualify as money, according to U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan in Manhattan. "Bitcoins are funds within the plain meaning of that term," Nathan wrote. "Bitcoins can be accepted as a payment for goods and services or bought directly from an exchange with a bank account. They therefore function as pecuniary resources and are used as a medium of exchange and a means of payment." Reuters provides some backstory in its report: Bitcoin qualifies as money, a federal judge ruled on Monday, in a decision linked to a criminal case over hacking attacks against JPMorgan Chase and Co and other companies. U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan in Manhattan rejected a bid by Anthony Murgio to dismiss two charges related to his alleged operation of Coin.mx, which prosecutors have called an unlicensed bitcoin exchange. Murgio had argued that bitcoin did not qualify as "funds" under the federal law prohibiting the operation of unlicensed money transmitting businesses. But the judge, like her colleague Jed Rakoff in an unrelated 2014 case, said the virtual currency met that definition. Authorities have said Coin.mx was owned by Gery Shalon, an Israeli man who, along with two others, was charged with running a sprawling computer hacking and fraud scheme targeting a dozen companies, including JPMorgan, and exposing personal data of more than 100 million people. That alleged scheme generated hundreds of millions of dollars of profit through pumping up stock prices, online casinos, money laundering and other illegal activity, prosecutors have said.
Actually written laws in the US normally include a "Definitions" section. Different laws in different states can and do use different definitions. In these case, neither actually used the term "money", so it's two completely different words being defined, of course the definitions are different.
The summary refers to a case in which a judge ruled that Bitcoin did not meet the requirements of one specific Florida law. The Florida law refers to "monetary instruments" and defines it as follows:
âoeMonetary instrumentsâ means coin or currency of the United States or of any other country, travelersâ(TM) checks, personal checks, bank checks, money orders, investment securities in bearer form or otherwise in such form that title thereto passes upon delivery, and negotiable instruments in bearer form or otherwise in such form that title thereto passes upon delivery.
Bitcoin is not "coin or currency of the United States or of any other country", it's not a money order, etc.
The federal law in the new case says:
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provides check cashing, currency exchange, or money transmitting or remittance services, or issues or redeems money orders, travelersâ(TM) checks, and other similar instruments or any other person who engages as a business in the transmission of funds
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Note all of the ORs- only ONE need be true. If it's "money transmitting", it qualifies, OR if it's "other similar instruments". That's a difference between the federal law and the Florida law, the Florida law doesn't say "other similar instruments". Bitcoin may well be a "other similar instrument".
* The Florida law does mention "negotiable instruments", but those are elsewhere defined as documents ordering the payment of a *specific sum of money*. Bitcoins don't order the payment of a specific sum of money, unless perhaps you first define Bitcoin as money, but that's circular.