Here is a link to the full PDF of the decision:
I'm guessing there are stackers here who would like to dig through the original source material themselves rather than rely on news reports.
I have been reading through it. There is a cryptocurrency primer at the beginning of the decision.
This probably goes without saying, but stackers shouldn't be put off by all of the shitcoin discussion. The legal principles are relevant to bitcoin.
It is interesting that the court refers to the Loper Bright case and the end of Chevron deference in its decision:
In effect, the Supreme Court has instructed that we must “independently identify and respect [constitutional] delegations of authority, police the outer statutory boundaries of those delegations, and ensure that agencies exercise their discretion consistent with” the Administrative Procedure Act or have engaged in reasoned decisionmaking within those boundaries. 37 To do so, we must “determine the ‘best’ reading of a statute; a merely ‘permissible’ reading is not enough.”38
We are starting to see in practice how significant that ruling was.
I also recommend you read the discussion regarding the definition of property. Here's some of the language:
The immutable smart contracts at issue in this appeal are not property because they are not capable of being owned. More than one thousand volunteers participated in a “trusted setup ceremony” to “irrevocably remov[e] the option for anyone to update, remove, or otherwise control those lines of code.” And as a result, no one can “exclude” anyone from using the Tornado Cash pool smart contracts. In fact, because these immutable smart contracts are unchangeable and unremovable, they remain available for anyone to use and “the targeted North Korean wrongdoers are not actually blocked from retrieving their assets,” even under the sanctions regime.
Here's some more:
Sure, some smart contracts are capable of being owned in the sense that Tornado Cash developers can create new smart contracts and disconnect old mutable contracts. In theory, should Tornado Cash developers choose to comply with sanctions on mutable smart contracts, those developers could disconnect those mutable smart contracts to make them inaccessible and unusable by anyone on the Ethereum blockchain. But they cannot discard, change, disconnect, or control smart contracts that are immutable—like the ones currently listed on OFAC’s SDN list and at issue in this appeal. Even with the sanctions in place, “those immutable smart contracts remain accessible to anyone with an internet connection.
This is particularly helpful language:
Indeed, the immutable smart contract provides a “service” only when an individual cryptocurrency owner makes the relevant input and withdrawal from the smart contract; at that point, and only at that point, the immutable smart contract mixes deposits, provides the depositor a withdrawal key, and, when provided with that key, sends the specified amount to the designated withdrawal account. In short, the immutable smart contract begins working only when prompted to do so by a deposit or entry of a key for withdrawal.
Overall, a good decision. Of course there was no discussion of code as speech, but the court didn't need to make that leap. The best part, for me, is seeing Loper Bright in action.