To be considered as money it should be first defined by law as such. So, like the judge said, as a payment instrument. I think that biggest advantage but at the same time also the biggest problem of.Bitcoin is that that is not precisely definedw by law and that gives a lot of space for different interpretations.
It's not necessarily a problem. Bitcoin is used like money. From a practical perspective it is of no importance if any state classifies Bitcoin as money or not - at least for the vast majority of users that use Bitcoin to buy goods and services or buy/sell Bitcoin at the major exchanges.
Trying to stage a money laundering case out of a minuscule p2p Bitcoin exchange does not instill trust in the U.S. executive branch. The judicial decision was right simply due to the fact that you can't launder money of a crime not yet committed.
If you ask me, money laundering should not be prosecuted at all, since it is not directly harming anyone. It is just an indirect way of trying to suppress crime that is not easy to suppress directly. However, by introducing such "secondary crimes" the probability of unjustified convictions rises significantly.
ya.ya.yo!
