The Case of the Missing Samourai

bc1984adam

• 2 min read
The Case of the Missing Samourai

@SamouraiWallet and @SamouraiDev have been indicted for conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to operate as a Money Services Business (MSB) without a license, allegations of which many in the bitcoin, privacy and legal community find to be preposterous...

On April 24, 2024, their servers and domain names were seized, affecting many of their services and users.

These two men are developers of entirely non-custodial, open-source bitcoin privacy software. Truly fantastic tools, I would add.

They followed the letter of the law; they retained legal counsel at great expense over many years to help them stay "within the lines". According to 2019 FinCEN guidelines, Samourai Wallet should not be considered a money transmitter, yet they were indicted as such.

The charges are "conspiracy-related", meaning there are no direct charges of money laundering or operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. If the Federal Government had evidence of outright money laundering or illegally operating a MSB, they presumably would have come out with it long ago.

Of course, it's no secret that the Samourai Devs flaunted what they were doing and taunted the state often. But these guys were in it for the average bitcoin user. They were always fully transparent about what they were doing: Trying to help the user stay private, break links in the chain, so to speak, and lower the risk for individuals to spend and receive bitcoin.

The indictment has already led to the shutdown of ancillary services and the removal of Samourai Wallet from the Google Play store, where previously Google "endorsed" the app implicitly for 9 years prior to this point by hosting it.

It is not just the users in the Samourai ecosystem that are affected. The outcome of this case could affect the everyday 'not-your-keys-not-your-coins' Bitcoin users and services as well, including Lightning Node operators and centralized mining pools, via further regulatory actions, unless the Samourai Guys are freed.

There are wide-ranging implications: The US government's actions extend beyond its borders, and influence many other countries' legal actions.

Sovereign individuals should oppose this judicial overreach and donate to preserve the right to privacy, code as speech and freedom to transact. It is a clear case of "lawfare" and legislation via prosecution.

The Samourai Developers should be free.

Please consider donating to their Legal Defense Fund: https://p2prights.org/donate.html

Coverage of Samourai Wallet Dev Cases:

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