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Posted February 06, 2019
As local news outlet Miami Herald reported January 30, Michell Espinoza, who sold bitcoin worth around $1350 to an undercover police detective in 2014, will now face a jury.
Prosecutors argue Espinoza should have registered as a money transmitter before advertising services on P2P trading platform Localbitcoins. A settlement in 2016 threw out the charges after a judge agreed Bitcoin was not legally money.
“Basically, it’s poker chips that people are willing to buy from you,” a defense witness said in court at the time.
The Third District Court of Appeal, however, has other ideas.
“Espinoza’s bitcoins-for-cash business requires him to register as a payment instrument seller and money transmitter,” the Herald quotes lawmakers as saying Wednesday.
A trial date has not yet materialized.
