Someone on reddit summerized it that way:
This ruling clarifies the guidance and says if you are mining for your own benefit you are not a money transmitter.
The second ruling is a bit more involved, but basically says if you are a business you can purchase/speculate/use bitcoin as part of your business as long as the purchase/speculation is not your business.
No, that's not how I interpret that. The purchase/speculation can be your business, however it can only be
your business, ie, it can't involve speculation/purchase on behalf of clients.
This is VERY positive overall, I believe. So far there doesn't seem to be momentum toward a fight/standoff between govt and virtual currency users. Maybe the U.S. is not quite as bad as Russia yet?
Nice job FinCEN.
I'll try to be optimistic, but they can change their own interpretation later.