On December 18th, days earlier than Christmas, Keonne Rodriguez, co-founder of the Bitcoin Samourai Pockets, should give up to jail. His crime? Making a software program software that gave Bitcoin customers comparable privateness to that which banks are anticipated to offer. Samourai Pockets, the model and expertise stack constructed by Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill, was shut down by the U.S. Authorities in April 2024 on quite a lot of fees, together with cash laundering, however just one cost caught after a high-profile trial, the weakest cost of all, “unlicensed cash transmission”.
What does it imply to transmit cash? In accordance with prosecutors, custodial management over consumer funds is not a requirement to want an MSB license; “a USB cable transfers knowledge from one system to a different, and a frying pan transfers warmth from a range to the contents of the pan, though neither state of affairs entails exercising ‘management’ over what’s being transferred.” If the DoJ can indict a frying pan, then USB producers higher lawyer up!
Remarkably, even FinCEN disagrees with the DoJ’s novel authorized interpretation of what constitutes a cash transmitter, as steerage on the time mentioned non-custodial companies couldn’t be cash transmitters as a result of they don’t exert management over cash flows. FinCEN reasserted this reality to the DoJ prosecutors in a written assertion, however they went ahead with the costs anyway. This essential reality was withheld from the protection for nearly a yr, when it was lastly revealed, “the choose denied the movement to current this proof within the hearings, with out even any argument,” in response to Rodriguez. Critics argue this misconduct by the DoJ prosecutors is a violation of Brady v. Maryland, denying entry to materials that might have undermined the unlicensed cash transmission fees, or, as Donald J. Trump would put it, this prosecution was rigged.
Zack Shapiro, head of coverage on the Bitcoin Coverage Institute, warns the Trump administration and American software program trade in regards to the potential ramifications of this authorized case, arguing that “collapsing the excellence between creating a software and working a service would introduce an untenable stage of danger for anybody constructing privacy-enhancing or security-critical software program.”
“Rodriguez and Hill in the end accepted plea agreements within the face of considerable sentencing publicity, though authorities information undermined the central regulatory principle of the case,” Shapiro added in a letter printed on the BPI web site, asking the Trump admin to pardon the Samourai Pockets devs.
Essentially, the prosecutorial strategy within the Samourai Pockets case dangers establishing an influential precedent that threatens the monetary privateness of Americans and stifles innovation within the U.S. crypto trade. It may form future prosecutions and regulatory developments, doubtlessly reclassifying non-custodial companies as cash transmitters underneath federal regulation—requiring nationwide MSB registration with FinCEN—and prompting stricter state-level licensing in jurisdictions like New York or California.
Echoing the trial towards Ross Ulbricht a decade earlier, this rigged case towards Samourai Pockets was arrange in the course of the Biden administration with assist from anti-crypto politicians whom Trump defeated within the 2025 elections with the favored mandate. Throughout his marketing campaign on the 2024 Bitcoin Nashville speech, Trump mentioned, “I’ll at all times defend the correct to self-custody,” and received main assist from the Bitcoin and crypto industries by means of the shared imaginative and prescient of constructing the US the crypto capital of the world.
“I pledge to the Bitcoin neighborhood that the day I take the oath of workplace, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ anti-crypto campaign can be over,” – Donald J. Trump, Nashville 2024.
Many libertarians within the broader crypto trade see entrepreneurs like Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill, in the identical class as Roman Storm and Roman Sterlingov of Twister Money and radio host Ian Freeman, as nothing greater than political prisoners of an entrenched banking cartel.
David Sacks, the enterprise capitalist and White Home A.I. & Crypto Czar, also needs to take note of this difficulty; in any other case, what does it even imply to be the Crypto Czar? If Bitcoin wallets find yourself regulated the identical as banks, regardless of having no counterparty danger, then whose pursuits are actually being served, Mainstreet’s or Wallstreet’s?
Whereas the Trump admin has been very conservative in the course of the DoJ’s prosecution and trial of the Samourai Pockets devs — and maybe, understandably so — that stage of the authorized battle is over.
It’s time for the Trump administration to satisfy its promise to the American public and defend self-custody and the crypto trade in America. It’s time for Trump to set the document straight and pardon Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill, in addition to the Twister Money devs, whereas we’re at it, lest now we have one other Ross Ulbricht-style miscarriage of justice.
The Bitcoin and crypto trade is nicely behind this effort and has begun gathering signatures at Change.org, totaling over 5000 thus far and rising, with the one official fundraising marketing campaign at GiveSendGo.
Ought to Trump pardon the Samourai Pockets devs, he could be sending a transparent sign to those that need surveillance-based, central financial institution digital forex techniques to enslave People and the world that People won’t stand for it. That the US stands with the elemental human proper to privateness, dignity, due course of, and the presumption of innocence, and never the techniques of intimidation developed by the likes of Joseph Gorbles, the place privateness is a criminal offense. Mass, indiscriminate surveillance, with out a warrant, with out due course of, that is the true crime.
