In a disturbing escalation of government overreach, US federal prosecutors have targeted the founders of Samourai Wallet, an open source Bitcoin wallet known for its robust privacy features. Despite clear guidance from financial regulators stating that Samourai Wallet did not violate any money transmission laws, the developers now face serious criminal charges.
In April 2024, federal agents arrested Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill. Their crime was writing and distributing open source Bitcoin wallet software. Not running a scam. Not stealing funds. Not holding user money. They built Samourai Wallet, a non custodial privacy wallet that never took possession of a single dollar.
Samourai Wallet users controlled their own keys. The software ran locally. Transactions happened on the Bitcoin network, not on Samourai servers. This distinction matters because US law draws a hard line between custodial financial services and software tools. Regulators at FinCEN understood this clearly. Prosecutors understood it too.
Regulators Said No Crime Existed
Internal communications later revealed that FinCEN explicitly told the Department of Justice that Samourai Wallet did not qualify as a money transmitting business. No custody meant no money transmission. That guidance was unambiguous. Under existing law, Samourai Wallet was software, not a financial intermediary. That should have ended the case immediately.
Instead, prosecutors buried that guidance, delayed disclosing it to the defense, and pressed forward anyway. This was not a misunderstanding of the law. It was a conscious decision to ignore the regulator tasked with interpreting it.
Twenty Five Years as a Weapon
The charges were extreme. Conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. Conspiracy to commit money laundering. Combined exposure exceeded twenty five years in prison. That number was not incidental. It was leverage. It was repeated in filings, in negotiations, and in the background of every procedural delay.
When the government threatens decades behind bars, plea deals stop being voluntary. They become survival decisions. Prosecutors knew this. They used it deliberately.
Procedural Pressure and Judge Switching
As the case dragged on, the battlefield shifted. Judges were reassigned. Timelines reset. Defense strategy had to be rebuilt midstream. This is how pressure is applied without ever admitting it exists. Delay drains resources. Uncertainty breaks resolve. The process itself becomes punishment.
For seventeen months, Rodriguez and Hill lived under restrictive conditions while the government slow-walked the case it should never have brought. Seventeen months separated from families, children, partners, and ordinary life. Time that cannot be returned.
Privacy Was the Real Target
The government’s narrative relied on a familiar lie. If criminals use a tool, the tool becomes criminal. That logic would outlaw encryption, web browsers, file sharing, operating systems, and spreadsheets. Samourai Wallet offered CoinJoin style transaction coordination. The code did not steal money. It did not hide funds for users. It reduced blockchain surveillance.
That privacy mattered. Samourai Wallet was used by journalists, activists, and dissidents operating under authoritarian regimes. People escaping capital controls. People avoiding retaliation. People who understood that permanent financial surveillance is a weapon. None of that mattered because privacy itself was framed as suspicious.
Prosecutors cherry picked marketing statements and chat logs and presented them out of context, while ignoring the reality that tens of thousands of ordinary users relied on Samourai Wallet to protect themselves from chain analysis firms, data brokers, and financial profiling. The software worked. That was its sin.
Punishment Before Conviction
The arrests were theatrical. Pre dawn raids. Armed agents. Public domain seizures. The Samourai website was replaced with a federal seizure banner before any trial occurred. This was punishment before conviction, designed to send a message to every developer watching.
Eventually, under immense financial and psychological pressure, both men accepted plea deals. The money laundering charge was dropped. The government quietly conceded what it already knew. The remaining offense carried a fraction of the original sentence, but the damage was already done.
A Chilling Precedent
In November 2025, a federal judge sentenced Rodriguez to five years in prison and Hill to four. No victims were named. No stolen funds were returned. No customers claimed harm. The punishment was symbolic. The real target was the idea that individuals can transact without permission.
This case was never about stopping crime. It was about control. Blockchain analysis companies depend on full financial visibility. Law enforcement depends on traceability. Samourai Wallet broke that model. It worked too well, so it had to be destroyed.
When the state prosecutes software authors for how others use their code, the rule of law collapses. Guidance no longer matters. Compliance becomes retroactive. Innovation becomes a liability. The chilling effect is the point.
The real criminals here are not the developers who wrote code. They are the officials who concealed exculpatory evidence, ignored their own regulators, switched judges, threatened decades of imprisonment, and used prosecutorial force to crush a lawful privacy tool.
These men built software that helped people survive under surveillance. The US government responded by stealing years of their lives.
Fuck the US government for robbing these men of precious time.
If you want to help the men whose lives were destroyed for writing lawful privacy software,
support their legal defense and families here:
https://billandkeonne.org/
Blackout VPN exists because privacy is a right. Your first name is too much information for us.
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FAQ
What was Samourai Wallet
Samourai Wallet was an open source non custodial Bitcoin wallet focused on transaction privacy and user sovereignty
Did Samourai Wallet ever hold user funds
No. Users always controlled their own private keys and funds remained on the Bitcoin network
Why did prosecutors claim it was illegal
They argued privacy features enabled crime despite regulators stating the software was not a money transmitting business
What role did FinCEN play
FinCEN advised prosecutors that Samourai did not meet the legal definition of a money transmitter
Why does this case matter beyond crypto
It establishes a precedent where writing privacy focused software can be treated as a criminal act