You could certainly be right that the phrasing was intended in this manner. Clearly though Mr. Chilton was falling over himself to use the terms "money laundering" and "drugs" as much as possible. He was trying to use the nastiest, dismissive language he could to describe bitcoins, and given that the use of the term "chattel currency" is virtually unprecedented on the entirety of the internet it certainly seems worth raising an eyebrow at the use of this phrasing.