[lifeisstillgood]

I think you made the counter-point yourself - because "cash" is so difficult to police governments treat it specially. Bitcoins are or perhaps are becoming a medium of exchange that is hard to police and attractive to criminals. So irrespective of our current definitions of funds society has an imperative to treat bitcoin as funds and so as something to be policed. Hence the ruling.

Well ok, the ruling was really "no, there is no way you are snidely gettin off Scott free because the law forgot to think of crypto-currency"