Bitcoin Forum

Now that the IRS has deemed bitcoin to be "property" and not "currency" surely that means that charlie shrem's & Ross Ulbricht's money laundering allegations are no longer valid?

Law doesn't work backwards.

It's still money laundering even if it involves exchanging tainted money for property and vice versa..

IRS rules that it is "property" for tax purposes.  It's very narrow in scope.  If it had ruled it currency, it wouldn't have been eligible for special lower tax rates on long term capital gains.  For the most part, this is a positive news for taxpayers, not so positive news for miners that didn't realize they were speculating in bitcoin after mining and holding and had losses.

A federal judge in Texas ruled it "currency" in respect to AML/money transmitter laws.   The law is still semi-fluid on this point, until set in stone by the Supreme Court.  Probably a good thing, considering the next point:

The big point that must be decided in the law is whether bitcoin is property or currency when it comes to Nemo dat quod non habet, where stolen bitcoin could be reclaimed by the original owner even though it has gone through several bona fide owners, if it is considered property.

if a drug dealer traded $1m FIAT for 2 picasso and van gogh paintings. and then they sold those paintings for clean money in a bank account...

... its still money laundering. no matter what 'vessel' of value they used

What if the drug dealer used HSBC bank (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=449534.msg4943801#msg4943801)?

He gets to party with Obama in a sleek, long limo.
Later, he gets "special favors" in jail.

Could you explain this further? How would people even prove that the ownership belonged to them, besides the coins going through their wallet in the blockchain?

If you obtain coins through a documented transaction, such as an exchange, or from a legitimate seller that has no problem providing a receipt, I'm sure the courts would have no problem with this establishing ownership.

its still money laundering.. but the vessel used is "to big to fail" so no one gets arrested, but as i said previously.. if paintings/gold or anything else was used. then the art auction house would be questioned/part of the laundering investigation aswell as the art taken away as evidence.

My subtle suggestion is it's not money laundering when nobody gets arrested, just as there is no serious terror threat when you can count the number of terror incidents in a decade on one hand. (note: I'm not suggesting we need more money laundering or terror incidents, rather that we need to rethink our "wars on" these things)

The Gov is a monster with many heads.
FINCEN says it's money, so he might still be in big trouble.

we will see what govt thinks.

Yeah, money laundering is usually always exchanged to something else and back again, hence why it's laundering. You can't just swap cash for cash and the money becomes clean.

You can launder money via real estate

You can launder it in potatoes if you wanted.