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Bitcoin is officially a commodity, according to U.S. regulator

Section: Daily Dispatches

Presumably this means that once a futures market is established in bitcoin, the U.S. government, acting pursuant to the Gold Reserve Act of 1934 as amended and through the Treasury Department's Exchange Stabilization Fund and the Federal Reserve, will be authorized to manipulate the bitcoin market in secret. Someone should ask the government about this -- not that it ever would give a truthful answer.

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By Luke Kawa
Bloomberg News
Thursday, September 17, 2015

Virtual money is officially a commodity, just like crude oil or wheat.

So says the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which on Thursday announced it had filed and settled charges against a Bitcoin exchange for facilitating the trading of option contracts on its platform.

"In this order, the CFTC for the first time finds that Bitcoin and other virtual currencies are properly defined as commodities," according to the press release.

While market participants have long discussed whether Bitcoin could be defined as a commodity, and the CFTC has long pondered whether the cryptocurrency falls under its jurisdiction, the implications of this move are potentially numerous.

By this action, the CFTC asserts its authority to provide oversight of the trading of cryptocurrency futures and options, which will now be subject to the agency's regulations. In the event of wrongdoing, such as futures manipulation, the CFTC will be able to bring charges against bad actors. ...

... For the remainder of the report:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-17/bitcoin-is-officially-...



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