cryptovibes.com
One DC Federal court said on July 25 that Bitcoin is money. Particularly, the ruling explained that BTC is already covered under the Washington, D.C, Money Transmitters Act.
The main reason why Bitcoin was being discussed in the Federal courts was a fraud and money laundering case that had bitcoin at the center of it. In early 2020, Larry Dean Harmon was arrested for running an underground Bitcoin trading platform.
He was charged with operating an unlicensed money transmitting business under D.C. law and for money laundering under federal law. According to the court case, Harmon is charged with using his platform as a means of disguising weapons and drug transactions. The darknet platform supposedly transacted around $311 million between 2014 and 2017, according to the indictment.
In regards to the total amount of bitcoin involved, the court denied a motion that aimed to return 160 Bitcoin recovered from Harmon. The reason for denying such a motion according to Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell is that the bitcoin was likely all involved in or to help criminal transactions.
Harmon is making strange allegations now that he is in custody but he was making millions of dollars in transactions where he used bitcoin. His defense was trying to get the case thrown out saying that Bitcoin is not money based on the Money Transmitters Act. Through that argument, he insists that his platform could not be a money transmitting business.
The Case
The court refused to dismiss the case. Writing on behalf of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell said that bitcoin does meet the criteria set by the Money Transmitters Act.
Howell commented that the idea of money “commonly refers to “a medium of exchange, method of payment, or store of value.” With that description, the courts and Howell say that Bitcoin is these things.
Many proponents say that this is the latest bit of positive news for the crypto community on the legislative front. Recently, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency announced that banks can go ahead and offer custodial crypto services.
This legislative news is not the only positive thing that the crypto industry has discovered recently. PayPal and Visa also said that they have intentions to dive into cryptos in the future.
The general sentiment is that major international firms and institutions are heading towards blockchain and bitcoin agnosticism. A majority of the experts have been striving for some favorable regulation; and the latest moves should introduce new investors to Bitcoin and other cryptos.
If more people are coming into the crypto space, it means that mainstream adoption is coming soon. That will prove to be quite bullish for the nascent industry. In recent months, institutional investors have taken a keen interest in cryptocurrencies with some of them; like Facebook, introducing their stablecoins.
Commentators and analysts believe that when the crypto space achieves some level of stability and reduced volatility, more investors will come in.