Bitcoin is now officially a commodity according to U.S. regulators, Bloomberg Business reports. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced on Thursday that it had filed and settled charges against a Bitcoin exchange for facilitating the trading of option contracts on its platform.

"In this order, the CFTC for the first time finds that Bitcoin and other virtual currencies are properly defined as commodities," notes the CFTC press release.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is an independent agency of the U.S. government created in 1974, which regulates futures and option markets that are subject to the Commodity Exchange Act. By this action, the CFTC asserts its authority to provide oversight of the trading of cryptocurrency futures and options, which will now be subject to the agency's regulations.

"While there is a lot of excitement surrounding bitcoin and other virtual currencies, innovation does not excuse those acting in this space from following the same rules applicable to all participants in the commodity derivatives markets," said CFTC's Director of Enforcement Aitan Goelman.

The CFTC action targets Bitcoin exchange Coinflip, which operated the Bitcoin financial derivatives market Derivabit, and its chief executive officer Francisco Riordan, for "conducting activity related to commodity options transactions without complying with the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and CFTC Regulations, specifically, by operating a facility for the trading or processing of commodity options without complying with the CEA or CFTC Regulations otherwise applicable to swaps or conducting the activity pursuant to the CFTC's exemption for trade options."