Washington, July 26 (HNA) – The virtual currency known as Bitcoin is a form of “money” covered under the Washington, D.C., Money Transmitters Act, a federal court said Friday, Bloomberg Law reported.
Money “commonly means a medium of exchange, method of payment, or store of value,” Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell wrote for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. “Bitcoin is these things.” The D.C. law adopts that meaning even though it doesn’t strictly define “money,” the court said.
The court declined to dismiss criminal charges against Larry Dean Harmon, the operator of an underground Bitcoin trading platform, for running an unlicensed money transmitting business under D.C. law and for laundering money under federal law.
The US federal court ruled that Bitcoin is a form of “money” covered under the District of Columbia’s (D.C.) Money Transmitter Act. The conclusion is part of a criminal action involving the U.S. versus Larry Dean Harmon, who operated a Bitcoin mixing platform.
In the U.S., financial regulators have used to debate over the status of Bitcoin as a commodity or security. A federal court set a precedent when it called Bitcoin “money” and said it was covered under Washington, D.C., Money Transmitters Act (MTA).
This enabled it to decline the dismissal of criminal charges against Larry Dean Harmon, who ran a Bitcoin mixing service that helped clients launder money obtained illegally. Harmon is charged with operating an unlicensed money transmitting business under D.C. law.
Harmon was targeting potential clients through the Dark Net and other underground channels, promoting his service, called Helix, as a Bitcoin tumbler, i.e., a platform that mixed the cryptocurrency to leave no trace of where it comes from. Such a platform would be used drug dealers, gun traffickers, and hackers like the one who fraudulently obtained over $100,000 by hacking into high-profile Twitter accounts.
He was indicted by a federal grand jury last year. Still, he rejected the accusations related to illegal-money-transmission, claiming that Bitcoin isn’t “money” under the MTA, and thus his platform wasn’t money transmitting business under the U.S. law.