A recent court case considering the taxation of worker stock options led U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer to speculate on whether one day U.S employees will be paid in cryptocurrency.

A ruling was issued on June 21st, 2018, in a case called “Wisconsin Central Ltd v. United States” which resolved a dispute addressing if worker stock options should be taxed as “compensation” in the same way as wages paid in fiat currency.

The majority opinion, delivered by Justice Gorsuch, confirmed that stocks do not count as “money renumeration” and that the case should be “remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

This means that future cases of this nature in the U.S. are likely to be concluded in the same way.

Associate Justice Stephen Breyer delivered a dissenting opinion which was backed by Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Kagan. In the 11-page statement, Breyer argues that the nature of “money” is less rigid than the majority’s interpretation, and that “what we view has money has changed over time.”

Breyer’s point is certainly of interest to cryptocurrency proponents:

“Cowrie shells once were such a medium [of exchange] but no longer are … our currency originally included gold coins and bullion, but, after 1934, gold could not be used as a medium of exchange … [P]erhaps one day employees will be paid in bitcoin or some other type of cryptocurrency.”

According to reports, it’s the first-time Bitcoin has been referenced in a U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

It is worth pointing out that the ruling doesn’t specifically concern cryptocurrencies or Bitcoin, and Breyer’s comments in this case are unlikely to influence future court cases on cryptocurrencies.

The comments do show, however, that cryptocurrencies are beginning to influence every aspect of financial systems and services, despite not yet being widely adopted in the same way as fiat currencies. They also indicate the likelihood that there will soon be Supreme Court cases which directly involve Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies and their definitions within financial infrastructures.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange commission (SEC) has decided that Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) are not securities, which may pave the way for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to become more common alternatives to fiat.

“These are replacements for sovereign currencies [like] the dollar, yen, euro, etc. [This] type of cryptocurrency is not a security,” said SEC Chairman Jay Clayton on Bitcoin.

The post U.S. Supreme Court Justice Speculates on Cryptocurrency as the Future of Money appeared first on UNHASHED.

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