Following the lawsuit concerning the indictment of Larry Dean Harmon, the court concluded that Bitcoin is a form of money under the MTA Act.
Defendant Larry Dean was charged in three counts regarding his Helix platform, which performed bitcoin operations.
The court stated that Helix:
enabled customers, for a fee, to send bitcoins to designated recipients in a manner which was designed to conceal and obfuscate the source or owner of the bitcoins.
The service was to be located in the Darknet network and could be used by anonymous users to purchase drugs, weapons and carry out various anonymous and illegal transactions.
According to available information, the Helix trading platform had an exchange turnover of approximately 354,468 bitcoins (approximately $ 311 million) between 2014 – 2017 and since December 3, 2019 faces serious accusations in the District of Columbia . The allegations mainly concern money laundering and the operation of an unlicensed business.
The US federal court thus had to thoroughly examine all aspects and came to the conclusion:
After examination of the relevant statutes, case law, and other sources, the Court concludes that bitcoin is money under the MTA and that Helix, as described in the indictment, was an “unlicensed money transmitting business” under applicable federal law. Accordingly, defendant’s motion to dismiss Counts Two and Three is denied.
For Larry, the verdict is probably not satisfactory, but for us and the bitcoin community, it is positive news.
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