"Interestingly, while a court document had been filed last week charging Price with unauthorized access to a computer in order to commit a federal crime for personal financial gain, that charge has since been withdrawn. However, as The Morning Call reports, Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Bonney failed to say why the charge had been removed when Price had admitted to the bitcoin theft. "

By officially charging someone with theft of BTC for "financial gain" the feds recognize its value thus legitimizing cryptos. My guess is that the feds don't want to make it 'official' that BTC is a legitimate currency, they do after all have a vested interest in forcing upon us their own debt based fiat currency and keeping up the mere appearance of legitimacy. The way I see it, to make that official charge would be a kin to the late and Honorable Justice Marvin V. Mahoney's opinion in First National Bank of Montgomery v. Jerome Daly, aka the Credit River Decision.