Crypto Advocacy Groups Urge Dismissal of Case Against Bitcoin Mixer Samourai

Two crypto interest groups, whose Amicus Curiae letter on behalf of Samourai wallet this week was refused by a federal court, said Decrypt That they encourage the dismissal of the case against the Bitcoin mixer that is responsible for operating as an illegal money channel.

The Blockchain Association, Coin Center, the Defi Education Fund and the Bitcoin Policy Institute have argued in their respective letters that Samourai Wallet has simply helped people to implement financial transactions online without breaking American legislation.

“Privacy is normal: it is normal for people to be able to be able to do financial transactions in the chain, while they are still doing privacy enforcement people with cash in their permanent lives,” Defi Education Fund Chief Legal Officer and executive director Amanda Tuminelli said Decrypt.

The police arrested Samourai Wallet developers Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill in April 2024 and then closed the website; The US Department of Justice claims that the app was a “granting of money without a permit” used by criminals.

Samourai wallet was one Bitcoin -Mengdienst– A service with which people can mask earlier crypto transactions – that FEDS CLOSED Last year.

The non -profit organizations spoke with Decrypt About their slip and why they find the business important for the industry.

The Defi Education Fund, together with the Blockchain Association, argued that the number of shipping of the money was invalid because continuing software developers who do not control user funds is beyond the meaning of the statute.

In short: the defendants only wrote software that other people used to transfer user funds – and never had to do with the money itself.

The interest groups claim that the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FINCEN, has established that entities need “total independent control over the value” to be money channels.

“[The government’s] Interpretation of the laws for transferring money to cover non-displayed software tools, generated widespread shock and alarm in the cryptocurrency world, which had long been familiar with the clear and correct guidance of the government with the opposite, “the assignment of the Blockchain Association and the Defi Education Fund.

Peter van Valkenburgh, executive director of Coin Center Decrypt That the defendants who operated a Coinjoin server “did not rise to the level of control over user funds that justifies the treatment as a money transmitter, including under Fincen’s own guidance of 2019.”

Lawyers for Rodriquez and Lonergan Hill last week submitted Paperwork that says that the case must be rejected, with the argument that users of the app always had control over their bitcoin.

Muntmix apps have taken the headlines since the American authorities forbidden Americans of the use of the Tornado-Contant money-based money in 2022, say that criminals had used that platform to wash dirty money white.

FBI then claimed that the co-founders of the app, Roman Storm and his colleague Roman Semenov, more than $ 1 billion in criminal yield white white.

Politicians often spoke about the case, and the biggest crypto exchange of America, Coinbase, confessed a lawsuit with the argument that sanctioning Tornado -Contant Money was unjust.

The Treasury of the United States in March said It had removed Tornado -Contant money from the list of parties punished by the Office of Foreign Assets Control, and a federal court in April permanently blocked The body of redecorating sanctions on it.

Edited by James Rubin