The legal ruling is in: Bitcoin is real money.

Ruling in a case heard in the U.S. Eastern District Court inTexas, Judge Amos L. Mazzant emphatically ruled that the Bitcoin virtual currency is in fact realmoney.

Wrote Mazzant: “It is clear that Bitcoin can be used as money. It can be used to purchase goodsor services, and … used to pay for individual living expenses. Theonly limitation of Bitcoin is that it is limited to those placesthat accept it as currency. However, it can also be exchanged forconventional currencies, such as the U.S. dollar, Euro, Yen andYuan. Therefore, Bitcoin is a currency or form of money,”

The case in which the question came up involves an SEC actionagainst an individual alleged to have operated a Ponzi scheme inwhich Bitcoin was the medium. The alleged perpetrator, TrendonShavers doing business as Bitcoin Savings and Trust (BTCST), issaid to have taken in roughly $4.5 million in Bitcoin, paid in byinvestors who were promised a 7% weekly return.

Roughly $1.8 million apparently was lost by the Bitcoininvestors.

When the SEC moved against Shavers and BTCST, the defendantcountered that Bitcoin is not money. Noted the judge: “Shaversargues that the BTCST investments are not securities becauseBitcoin is not money, and is not part of anything regulated by theUnited States. Shavers also contends that his transactions were allBitcoin transactions and that no money ever exchanged.”

Therefore, claimed the defendant, the SEC case necessarilycollapses.

The judge, in his ruling, saw matters differently, saying thatBitcoin is money and the SEC case can proceed.

Kim Forrest, senior equity analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group inPennsylvania and a Bitcoin expert. said in an interview that “if itwalks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's a duck. That is whatthe judge is saying. His ruling is the essence ofpracticality.”

Barrie VanBrackle, avirtual currency expert and a partner in the law firm Manatt,Phelps & Phillips, wrote in an email: “It is not surprisingthat Judge Mazzant defined Bitcoin as 'a currency or form of money'given the recent guidance issued by the Department of Treasury which would consider an administrator or exchanger ofa virtual currency to be a money services business (and noted thatthe definition of a money transmitter does not differentiatebetween real currencies and virtual currencies).

“Further, the California Department of Financial Institutionsrecently issued a cease and desist order to Bitcoin Foundation,stating that it is required to register as a 'money' transmitter –again, without any distinguishing between 'real and virtual'currencies (and without addressing whether the Foundation itself isinvolved in the transmission of any currency- real or virtual.”

Bottom line: Bitcoin definitely is real money. At least fornow.