Thursday marked a historic day for bitcoin, being the flagship cryptocurrency made its first appearance on an opinion published by the US Supreme court.
The case, Wisconsin Central Ltd. v. Usa, did not involve bitcoin’s regulatory or legal status. Rather, it examined whether employee share represent taxable compensation inside of the Railroad Retirement Tax Act of 1937.
That might appear to be an unlikely position for a discussion of bitcoin to search, however, as justices noted in the the majority and dissenting opinions, true forced them how to consider a fundamental question with also adopted a renewed importance within the decade following a publication belonging to the Bitcoin whitepaper: “What is money?”
Ultimately, the 5-4 majority ruled that employees really taxed for exercising share since the action is not going to constitute “money remuneration.”
However, writing with a dissenting opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer argued to have a “broader understanding of money” and said that stock options really should be classified as taxable compensation.
First mention of bitcoin in a U.S. Supreme Court case today in J. Breyer’s dissent in Wis. Central v. U.S. At issue: are commodity are taxable “compensation” with the Railroad Retirement Tax Act. 5-4 majority disapproves b/c not “money remuneration”. https://t.co/DNxxbsgQDw pic.twitter.com/XwC5WOMUgr
– Palley (@stephendpalley) June 21, 2019
Breyer’s opinion, which included a citation to?Money: The Unauthorized Biography – From Coinage to Cryptocurrencies, used bitcoin as one example of the changing nature of clinking coins and theorized that “perhaps a day employees are going to be paid in Bitcoin an additional cryptocurrency.”
He wrote (citations omitted):
“Moreover, that which you view as money has changed over time. Cowrie shells were in the past such a medium but will no longer are; our currency originally included coins and bullion, but, after 1934, gold did not be used as a medium of exchange; perhaps one day employees might be paid in Bitcoin or another type of cryptocurrency. Nothing during the statute suggests the meaning of this provision should really be trapped in a financial time warp, forever constrained by those sorts money popular in the 1930’s.”
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan joined Breyer in their dissent.
While Thursday marked the main instance of the definition of “bitcoin” being part of a Supreme Court opinion, it’s unlikely to get the last. In fact, cryptocurrency’s perceived connection to drug trafficking besides other criminal activities can certainly make a prominent appearance in a case whose papers are currently pending ahead of the Court.
As CCN reported, Ross Ulbricht, operator of now-defunct dark web marketplace Silk Road, has appealed his conviction in the Supreme Court, arguing which the government violated his Fourth and Sixth Amendment rights through investigation and sentencing (he is serving an existence sentence without parole).
While the Supreme Court hasnrrrt yet said in the event it will hear Ulbricht’s case, legal expert Tom Goldstein has stated that there is a “reasonable chance” that your constitutional questions raised by Ulbricht’s petition would earn a listening to the Court “in an acceptable case”.
Image:?usaherald.com