The regulatory environment in Canada is rather more promising than the present situation in the United States, due to a regulatory ruling regarding Bitcoin last year on the part of Revenue Canada (the Canadian equivalent of the IRS). Under Canadian law, Bitcoins are most analogous to gold (i.e. a commodity) and are not money. When exchanging Bitcoins for fiat, one therefore creates the only relevant taxable event in the chain of transactions. The differences between the securities environments in the United States and Canada are also worth noting. Canada lacks a federal securities regulator (despite a small step having been taking towards one last week), and the provincial securities regulators are therefore less powerful and consequently far less aggressive than the SEC. Most security regulation infractions in Canada are a civil matter rather than criminal and IIROC (the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada) is a opt-in style self-policing organization within the securities industry rather than a government agency.