Bitcoin, the king of digital currencies, counts as real money.
That was the decision handed out by U.S. district Judge Alison Nathan in Manhattan on the ongoing criminal case involving the now defunct Florida bitcoin exchange Coin.mx and one of its former operators, Anthony Murgio.
Murgio, who was indicted on alleged money laundering charges last year, wanted the court to dismiss two charges related to Coin.mx’s operation on grounds that bitcoin don’t count as “funds” under the U.S. law.
Nathan, however, believes otherwise.
In his decision, quoted by Reuters, the federal judge said bitcoin meets the definition of money since they “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,” Nathan wrote, according to the news outlet.
The ruling comes in the heels of another court decision—this time in Florida—in which a Miami judge ruled that bitcoin doesn’t qualify as a form money according to state statutes. That decision sparked a renewed efforts in the Florida legislature to develop regulations around the use and trade of cryptocurrency.
Apple adds 3 more digital currencies in App Store
Meanwhile, tech giant Apple has reportedly included three more digital currencies in the iOS App Store.
Several weeks ago, the Cupertino-based hardware major announced that it is allowing blockchain based payments applications to be integrated with iMessage in the iOS 10 update. One of the first third party apps to be included in the new iPhone 7 is Circle, a peer-to-peer payments technology that uses fiat currencies and bitcoin as its payments rail.
According to Anthony Di Iorio, CEO of blockchain wallet Jaxx, Apple has added steem, lisk and digicash in the App Store, bringing the total of cryptocurrencies accepted by the tech giant to nine. Other digital currencies accepted by the company are bitcoin, dogecoin, litecoin, ether, DAO tokens and ripple.
Apple is known for resisting the including of digital currency-based applications on its App Store. Recently, the tech giant asked Jaxx Blockchain Wallet to remove Dash support on its iOS application, and has also blocked several bitcoin applications, including ethereum wallet apps, from its App Store in the past—only to reinstate them later on.
Current bitcoin price and trade volume
The price of bitcoin dropped to $606.54 early Tuesday morning, with a trade volume of more than $29.75 million.
