The Case That Could Define Digital Freedom
In a Pennsylvania courtroom and a Portuguese prison cell, two software developers sit convicted for a crime that should terrify every Bitcoin advocate: they wrote code. Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill, the creators of Samourai Wallet, were sentenced in November 2024 to five and four years in federal prison, respectively. Their conviction represents not just an attack on privacy technology, but a dangerous precedent that strikes at the heart of what makes Bitcoin revolutionary.
The message from the U.S. Department of Justice is clear and chilling: build privacy tools, go to prison. This isn't justice, it's something else. And it demands our unified response: Free Samourai.
What Was Samourai Wallet?
Samourai Wallet wasn't some shadowy criminal enterprise. It was a non-custodial Bitcoin wallet—meaning users maintained complete control of their funds at all times. The developers never touched a single satoshi belonging to their users. They built software that gave people the fundamental human right to financial privacy.
The wallet featured two key privacy technologies: Whirlpool, which coordinated CoinJoin transactions between users to obscure transaction histories, and Ricochet, which added intermediate steps to make blockchain analysis more difficult. These weren't novel criminal tools—they were implementations of privacy techniques discussed openly in cryptographic research for years.
Between 2015 and 2024, Samourai facilitated approximately $2 billion in Bitcoin transactions. Of this enormous sum, prosecutors claim $237 million involved criminal proceeds.
Think about that ratio: they're prosecuting the developers for 11.85% of the platform's total volume, meaning 88.15% of users were engaged in completely lawful activity people who simply wanted privacy for their legitimate financial transactions.
The Persecution Playbook
The government's case against Rodriguez and Hill relies on a dangerous theory: that developers are responsible for every possible misuse of their software. Prosecutors pointed to marketing materials and social media posts where the founders discussed privacy use cases, twisting advocacy for financial privacy into "solicitation" of criminal activity.
But here's what the prosecution conveniently ignored: Rodriguez and Hill never held user funds. They never had the ability to censor transactions. They built a tool, released it into the world, and let users decide how to use it. This is how software development has always worked—until now.
The charges were particularly egregious: conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. Yet FinCEN itself, the financial crimes enforcement network, had previously stated that non-custodial wallet software doesn't constitute money transmission. The government's own regulatory body said what Samourai did wasn't illegal, but prosecutors charged them anyway.
In July 2024, facing the prospect of 20-year sentences on money laundering charges, Rodriguez and Hill accepted plea deals. They admitted to conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business—not because they believed they were guilty, but because the alternative was potentially spending the rest of their lives in prison. This is coerced confession, not justice.
Why Privacy Isn't Criminal
Financial privacy isn't some fringe concern—it's a fundamental human right enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 12 explicitly protects against "arbitrary interference with privacy." The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects citizens against unreasonable searches. These aren't radical concepts; they're foundational principles of free societies.
Yet when these principles are applied to digital money, suddenly they're treated as criminal intent. This is absurd and dangerous. Privacy is the default state of traditional financial transactions. When you hand someone cash, there's no permanent public record of that exchange. When you swipe your credit card at a store, the clerk doesn't get access to your entire financial history. These are features, not bugs, of functional financial systems.
Bitcoin's public blockchain creates unique privacy challenges. Every transaction is permanently recorded and publicly visible. Without privacy tools, Bitcoin users face the prospect of total financial surveillance—where anyone can view their complete financial history, their income, their spending patterns, their business relationships. This isn't just uncomfortable; it's dangerous.
The growing wave of physical attacks on Bitcoin holders—people targeted in their homes because blockchain analysis revealed their holdings—demonstrates why privacy isn't optional. It's a security necessity. Samourai Wallet was built to address this real, documented problem.
Code as Speech, Developers as Criminals
The Samourai prosecution directly contradicts decades of legal precedent establishing that code is speech. In Bernstein v. United States Department of Justice (1996), courts recognized that source code is protected expression under the First Amendment. Writing software is fundamentally an act of communication, sharing ideas and tools with others.
If Rodriguez and Hill are criminals for writing privacy software, what about the researchers who published the CoinJoin paper? What about the developers of Tor, which enables anonymous internet browsing used by journalists, dissidents, and yes, sometimes criminals? What about the creators of PGP encryption, or Signal, or any other privacy technology?
The answer cannot be that privacy tools are illegal because bad people might use them. Every general-purpose technology can be misused. Cars enable bank robberies. Phones enable fraud schemes. The internet hosts criminal marketplaces. We don't imprison automobile engineers when someone uses a car as a getaway vehicle.
The Double Standard
Perhaps most infuriating is the stark double standard on display. While Rodriguez and Hill sit in prison for building software used by some criminals, not a single banking executive faced jail time when HSBC was caught laundering $881 billion—yes, billion with a B—for drug cartels and terrorist organizations. When JPMorgan paid $290 million to settle sex trafficking allegations in 2023, no executives were prosecuted. TD Bank faced the largest Bank Secrecy Act penalty ever for allowing over $1 billion in criminal money through its system, yet no one went to prison.
Traditional financial institutions facilitate vastly more criminal activity than cryptocurrency ever has, yet they face civil fines while crypto developers face prison sentences. This isn't equal justice under law—it's selective persecution of new technologies that threaten incumbent power structures.
The Chilling Effect
The prosecution of Samourai's developers has already had devastating consequences for privacy development in the United States. Phoenix Wallet, one of the best self-custodial Lightning wallets, immediately exited the U.S. market after the arrests. Wasabi Wallet blocked American users. Sparrow Wallet removed its CoinJoin integration. Developers around the world are looking at the Samourai case and deciding that building privacy tools isn't worth the risk of federal prosecution.
This chilling effect is precisely what the government wants. By making an example of Rodriguez and Hill, they're sending a message to every developer: stay away from privacy. The result won't be the elimination of privacy tools—criminals will continue to access them through underground channels. What will be eliminated is privacy for ordinary, law-abiding people who simply want control over their own financial information.
A Global Perspective
The importance of this case extends far beyond American borders. Around the world, people live under authoritarian regimes that use financial surveillance as a tool of oppression. Dissidents, journalists, and activists need privacy tools to survive. Women fleeing domestic violence need to hide their financial transactions from their abusers. LGBTQ+ individuals in hostile countries need privacy to protect themselves from persecution.
Bitcoin promised financial freedom for everyone, not just those living in liberal democracies. By criminalizing privacy technology, the U.S. government is effectively saying that Bitcoin should only exist as a fully surveilled system—defeating the entire purpose of a decentralized, censorship-resistant currency.
Moreover, this prosecution demonstrates breathtaking regulatory overreach. Rodriguez and Hill were arrested in the United States and Portugal for building software used globally. If American courts can imprison developers for code used by people in other countries, then no developer anywhere is safe. Software development becomes subject to the most restrictive laws of any jurisdiction where the software might be used.
The Path Forward
Rodriguez and Hill have already served months of their sentences. They've been ripped from their families, had their life's work destroyed, and been made examples of in a campaign of government intimidation. This is more than enough.
President Trump, who campaigned on promises to defend self-custody and crypto innovation, now has the opportunity to make good on those commitments. Recent reports suggest he's considering reviewing Rodriguez's case for a potential pardon. This would be a powerful first step, but it's not enough. Both developers deserve immediate pardons and public apologies.
The Department of Justice issued guidance in August 2025 stating that "merely writing code without ill intent is not a crime." This acknowledgment comes too late for Rodriguez and Hill, whose arrests occurred before this policy shift. But it demonstrates that even the government recognizes the fundamental problem with these prosecutions.
Why We Must Act
The Samourai case isn't just about two developers. It's about whether we'll allow the government to criminalize privacy itself. It's about whether we'll permit the precedent that software developers are responsible for every possible use of their code. It's about whether Bitcoin will remain a tool for financial freedom or become just another surveilled system.
If we accept the imprisonment of Rodriguez and Hill, we accept a future where financial privacy is illegal. Where building privacy tools makes you a criminal. Where Bitcoin users must choose between using the technology effectively and risking prosecution.
This isn't the Bitcoin community I know. We've always stood for individual sovereignty, for the right to control our own money, for resistance against unjust authority. The Samourai developers took those principles seriously and built tools to make them real. Their reward was federal prosecution.
Every day Rodriguez and Hill remain imprisoned is a day that the promise of Bitcoin is betrayed. Every day is a reminder that the fight for financial freedom isn't over—it's just beginning.
Conclusion: A Call to Action
Free Samourai isn't just a slogan—it's a demand for justice and a defense of fundamental principles. Rodriguez and Hill are not criminals; they're pioneers who understood what Bitcoin needs to fulfill its promise. They deserve our support, our advocacy, and our unwavering commitment to securing their release.
The crypto community must unite behind this cause. Write to your representatives. Support legal defense funds. Amplify this story. Make it politically untenable for any administration to keep these developers behind bars for the "crime" of writing privacy software.
Financial privacy is a human right. Writing code is free speech. These aren't radical statements—they're foundational truths that the Samourai prosecution has attempted to overturn. We cannot let that stand.
Free Samourai. Free privacy development. Free Bitcoin itself from the chains of total surveillance.
The time to act is now.
The future of financial freedom depends on it.
The imprisonment of Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill represents one of the most significant threats to cryptocurrency development in history. Their sentences must be commuted, their convictions vacated, and their work recognized for what it truly is: an essential contribution to financial privacy and human freedom.
