Crypto fan Donald Trump has been throwing around pardons for big names from the crypto industry since his return to the White House. It now seems that another name may be added and privacy enthusiasts are very happy with that.
Trump: ‘I’ll look into it’
“I’ve heard about it, I’ll look into it,” Trump said yesterday during a question period with journalists about the possible pardon of convicted crypto developer Keonne Rodriguez.
Rodriguez co-founded Samourai Wallet with William “Bill” Lonergan Hill, a bitcoin wallet with a strong focus on privacy. The app offered users the option of making it more difficult to track their transactions, including through so-called mixing services. Bitcoin transactions are combined and rearranged so that the origin is less easy to trace.
According to the US Department of Justice, the makers went too far. Prosecutors alleged that Samourai Wallet was used to launder millions of dollars in criminal money and that its founders ran an illegal money transmission service. The developers would even have actively encouraged that use.
Rodriguez and Hill were arrested under the Biden administration and initially faced serious charges, carrying a possible sentence of up to 25 years. Ultimately, they decided to plead guilty to one charge: operating an unregistered money transmission service.
The two were convicted three weeks ago. Rodriguez received the maximum sentence of five years, Hill four years.
Rodriguez has already heard what Trump said from prison in West Virginia. He responded the following on social media platform X:
”The persistent noise works. Thanks to everyone urging @realDonaldTrump to pardon Bill and me. Let’s get this over the line.”
Privacy under pressure
The case divides the crypto world. Critics see Samourai Wallet as a deliberate money laundering machine. Proponents argue that it is software and that developers are not responsible for what users do with it. They warn that these types of convictions will put a brake on the development of privacy tools, while that is a core idea of bitcoin.
Since returning to the White House, Trump has been busy making the United States the “crypto capital of the world” while simultaneously stopping the war on the industry.
In January, he pardoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, the man behind a notorious online marketplace where drugs and other illegal goods were traded with bitcoin for years. In October, Changpeng Zhao, the founder and former CEO of crypto exchange Binance, was pardoned.
Source: https://newsbit.nl/trump-flirt-met-gratie-in-belangrijke-crypto-privacyzaak/
