Bitcoin, the open source cryptocurrency that’s turning the already shaky financial market upside down, is gaining further legal support now that it has been officially considered a legitimate currency by the US Courts, and is now to be delimited and regulated by US Government legislators.

As a novel way to transfer funds, Bitcoin has been embraced by many merchants around the globe, although so far it has predominantly been used for gambling transactions and also for money transfers in cases where the usual financial institutions wouldn’t provide support (e.g. Cyprus during the Euro crisis, Venezuela and Argentina under pseudo-dictatorships, etc.).

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win

Bitcoin’s largest funders are VCs Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. If you’ve seen the movie ‘The Social Network’, then you might remember them as the tall athletic twin brothers, both played by Armie Hammer, who claimed they invented what became Facebook, only this time they’re not after Zuckerberg.

The twins are in real-life now running a proposal to launch the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust, a financial service that will control the cryptocurrency’s fluctuations in the market, giving it better legal support to help it expand into new market niches (including gambling). The Winklevoss twins have hit it good this time, or so it seems.

Digital currencies are not going away.

Carol Van Cleef, Head of legal firm Patton Boggs’s

However, even as the US has started to grant some degree of legal leeway for this online currency, some other countries have done the opposite. The Thai Government has ruled that the Bitcoin currency is ‘illegal’, banning it from any possible economic activity, be it sending Bitcoins inside or outside Thai territory.

Despite all the ‘legal actions’ against Bitcoin, the Thai Central Bank made no comment on whether the online currency was infringing any laws, capital controls or other type of financial activity. Many Bitcoin supporters have claimed this was merely a political decision aimed at shoring-up the existing financial structure, thus making no room for other types of exchange.

Players and Bitcoin Casinos from all over the world have tried to gain support and establish dialogue  with different governments and financial institutions, in the light of positive results in the latest online poker casinos that work entirely with Bitcoins.

Needless to say, unlike other global currencies, there’s a limit to the number of Bitcoins that can be produced (฿ 21 million to be more specific), which avoids the risk of sudden spurts of inflation that other currencies can be subject to. This makes bitcoins one of the more attractive investments for people (and casinos) around the world.

Nevertheless, we don’t recommend you run out immediately to get your Bitcoins and start playing online. The currency still has a long way to go before it reaches the various online casinos in the different markets, especially in Europe, where it hasn’t yet received approval from the EU Central Bank, much less from the EU Gambling Commission.