Bitcoin vindication: crypto-commodity.

• Author: Doherty, Brian
• Position: Brief article

In 2014, the Internal Revenue Service declared that bitcoins are property but not money. Florida Circuit Court Judge Teresa Pooler decided in July that if that's so, then Michell Espinoza can't be guilty of acting as an unlicensed money transmitter or money launderer for selling bitcoins to a cop.

A police officer exchanged cash for the cryptocurrency with Espinoza on multiple occasions, at one point saying he would buy credit card numbers online with it. Espinoza was eventually arrested for money laundering and for unlawfully engaging in business as a money transmitter. But since he did not receive the cash "for the purpose of transmitting same to a third party," Judge Pooler wrote, he is not a "money transmitter"--just a guy selling a legal commodity.

"The Florida Legislature may choose," Pooler wrote, "to adopt statutes regulating...