Defining (Again) The Scope Of "Commodity"

On July 21, 2025, a U.S. district court judge in Texas stated in an opinion and order¹ that "section 1 ^{of the Commodity Exchange Act ("CEA")}2 does not encompass precious metals ^{such as gold} as commodities because they are neither agricultural products nor movie tickets."³ The judge cited a lot of authority in his opinion, but another quote comes to mind from Voltaire: "opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plagues and earthquakes." Indeed, the law is very well established on the matter that gold is a "commodity" under § 1a(9) of the CEA.

Questioning the scope of the definition of "commodity" will cause a lot of confusion and create unnecessary uncertainty in an otherwise established area of law because this analysis may apply to other new "articles" and "goods" "in which contracts for future delivery are presently . . . dealt in," such as various digital commodities (e.g., cryptos or tokens), or event contracts (e.g., outcomes of sports