By Nick Hamilton | United States

There has been a lot of discussions lately about regulating Bitcoin, and whether the United States should move towards it or not. On Tuesday, Federal Judge Jack Weinstein agreed that the CFTC, or the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, has the right to regulate this up and coming cryptocurrency.

Weinstein asserted that Bitcoin is a commodity, meaning it can be regulated by the CTFC. This came on the brink of a lawsuit between the CFTC and CabbageTech, which is run by Patrick Kerry McDonnell, and asserted that the CFTC certainly has a good case against them for fraud.

The “fraud,” according to the agency, was based on McDonnell asserting himself as a crypto expert to get customers. However, he was misappropriating funds. The CFTC says that CabbageTech has misled their customers since January of 2017.

Weinstein stated, “The CFTC Complaint further alleges that to conceal their scheme, soon after obtaining customer funds, Defendants removed the website and social media materials from the Internet and ceased communicating with [Coin Drop Markets] Customers, who lost most if not all of their invested funds due to Defendants’ fraud and misappropriation.” (Quote from Fortune)

In this lawsuit, McDonnell is representing himself. According to a report by CNBC, he declined to comment on this matter.

This lawsuit looks to be a landmark case for the future of Bitcoin, and the push to regulate it, which even Republicans are getting behind now. BTC went from being around $11.4K on Tuesday to just under $9.9K Thursday morning, a $1.5K drop in under 48 hours. This case looks to be an interesting one, and certainly, one that will be kept up with.