These recent articles make it sound like there has been a recent revelation by the "U.S. Government" that bitcoin has actually been a commodity all along. The

These recent articles make it sound like there has been a recent revelation by the "U.S. Government" that bitcoin has actually been a commodity all along. The reality is much more complicated. The federal government is made up of many different agencies, and each one is trying to figure out whether they should be regulating it, in case they may take the fall for not preventing the next big Mt. Gox style collapse or scam. While CFTC have recently decided that they should regulate bitcoin options as a commodity, the IRS have deemed bitcoin as property for capital gains tax purposes, but their FinCEN division (along with NYDFS and most other states) are regulating it very much as a currency under money transmission laws. In the end this doesn't really matter. The power of bitcoin is that it is decentralized, and, like the internet itself, if an individual is able to connect to the network, then they are able to make transactions with others, regardless of how liberal or oppressive their government is. TL;DR: Regulations will continue to make it increasingly difficult to run bitcoin businesses in the U.S., but that doesn't matter. Bitcoin's power will always come from the fact that it is a completely open network for individuals.