💱 U.S. judge sides with CFTC on crypto oversight

A federal judge has ruled that "virtual currencies" meet the definition of a commodity and fall within the jurisdiction of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The decision was made in the specific case of a lawsuit against Nevada-based My Big Coin Pay Inc, which the CFTC claims missapropriated $6 million from 28 customers they lured by naming their virtual currency to sound like bitcoin and further claiming it was backed by gold. The judge found that because the law defines commodities in broad categories rather than specific types or brands My Big Coin would fall into the definition. Furthermore, because My Big Coin and Bitcoin ($BTC) can both be broadly categorized as virtual currencies, and bitcoin futures currently trade on U.S. exchanges, the CFTC has oversight for virtual currencies according to the judge.