So if you run a Bitcoin node you are a money transmitter? This sounds like a very bad precedent. I get they are trying to avoid a harsher sentence, but this sounds very bad. And 5 years?!
Discussion
There’s no precedent with a guilty plea thankfully
How do you mean? Because they pled guilty this case can’t be used as justification for other cases?
Right. It’s because this is a plea and a plea is not a judicial decision. Had they lost in court and been found guilty than that would have set precedent. This is a negotiated settlement to avoid trial.
They actively collected fees for their Coinjoin, Paynym and some other services.
Some of these did not even require a central server (like Paynym, Stonewall and collaborative transactions) but a fee was still taken by Samourai Wallet developers.
They also have the capability to comply with the OFAC address list on their coordinator, but have decided not to.
Other things include that they possibly could have traced all of their users…
I sometimes can’t feel bad for them when they literally poked the bear multiple times, while also giving the government every excuse to shut it down, and also being extremely shady.
tl;dr none of that is even close to running a Bitcoin node.
also fyi many influencers like Odell have a financial incentive in Samourai wallet, and I remember the Samourai wallet team displaying many characteristics similar to NVK.