"Commodity" and "Currency" are - before the law steps in - more or less arbitrary descriptions of human behaviors with extremely poorly-defined edges. Cigarette

"Commodity" and "Currency" are - before the law steps in - more or less arbitrary descriptions of human behaviors with extremely poorly-defined edges. Cigarettes are clearly a currency in jail, but they're a commodity pretty much everywhere else. Once the law steps in - and it will - bitcoin is whatever the hell they say it is, in a court of law, which is the only place these definitions really matter. FINCEN has an opinion already, but that's just one part of one government. The consensus will take time to settle. For my money while mining is still possible, bitcoin is a commodity. After that it's something new, like a currency, but with a permanently inflexible monetary policy. That's never happened before, so what it will be, we just don't know. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/us-regulator-bitcoin-exchanges-must-comply-with-money-laundering-laws/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/us-regulator-bitc...