Two software developers are going to prison for writing CODE. The creators of Samourai Wallet have pleaded guilty for doing everything BY THE LAW.
Here’s what the DOJ doesn’t want you to know:
• They asked regulators if it was legal they were told YES
• DOJ hid that evidence for a year (Brady violation)
• Trump’s memo says don’t prosecute developers
• 50 armed FBI agents raided their homes for no reason
• Judge Berman was mysteriously swapped out for Judge Cote without explaination
Thank you for sharing, Isa
Smarty pants
Free Keanu and Will
Thanks for using your platform to share this.
Did they HAVE to store everyone's IPs though? JAM and wasabi don't seem to, why were they intentionally sloppy with their users privacy?
Xpubs** not IPs... not sure which is worst.
Yes, I acknowledge that storing an xpub in a way that makes it possible to identify who it belongs to is dangerous and deserves criticism.
However, the text I wrote earlier was not focused on this specific technical issue, but on a broader and more fundamental topic: freedom, privacy, and the creative autonomy of software developers.
Even if storing an xpub could, in some cases, enable or contribute to illegal activity, we must clearly separate responsibility. Blaming developers for the individual actions of third parties sets a very dangerous precedent. It shifts responsibility away from personal choice and onto people who only created a tool.
If this logic is applied consistently, any technology creator could be held responsible for how others use their work. Taken to the extreme, if Satoshi Nakamoto had been identified, he could have been prosecuted — or even sentenced to death — for actions committed by people he never met and never had control over.
This path does not protect society. It only suppresses innovation, criminalizes freedom, and puts software development itself under constant threat.
Privacy is not a crime.
Freedom is not complicity.
Defending tools that expand individual freedom does not mean defending illegal acts. It means recognizing a basic principle: everyone deserves privacy — financial, personal, and moral.
Software like Samourai Wallet does not commit crimes. It is a tool. Just like cash, the internet, phones, or encryption. If someone uses these tools for illegal purposes, the responsibility lies only with the individual, not with the code or the people who wrote it.
Punishing software creators for how others use their tools sets a dangerous precedent. It shifts the blame of a sick society that cannot handle freedom onto those who dared to protect and expand it.
The majority should not — and must not — be punished for the actions of a few. Especially not the developers who simply created tools to help people exercise a right that has always belonged to them: the right to privacy.
Privacy does not protect crime.
It protects ordinary people from abuse, mass surveillance, and authoritarian control.
If we criminalize freedom today, tomorrow only permission will remain.
If they come for one of us, they will come for all of us.
