Quote from: FreeTrade on October 22, 2011, 10:11:12 AM

Quote from: I.Goldstein on October 22, 2011, 03:02:54 AM

My advice: Don't call it a currency. Don't call it money. Don't associate it with finances. Call it social-based transactions and say it's protected under free speech; The First Amendment if you're American. That's all you have.

This is good advice and has the occasionally useful advantage of being true.

An accurate (and probably the least controversial description) of Bitcoin is that is a record of public statements. I don't see that you can outlaw keeping such a record, nor outlaw making new public statements (that others may or may not add to their record) without going head to head with free speech.

It's always funny how some people assume the legal system and judges to be like computer scripts: If I feed this information X into it, then according to the script, result Y should appear.

It doesn't work like that. Law texts are interpreted. Judges call bullshit.