On December 18th, days before Christmas, Keonne Rodriguez, co-founder of the Bitcoin Samourai Wallet, will have to surrender to prison. His crime? Creating a software tool that gave Bitcoin users comparable privacy to that which banks are expected to provide. Samourai Wallet, the brand and technology stack built by Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill, was shut down by the U.S. Government in April 2024 on a variety of charges, including money laundering, but only one charge stuck after a high-profile trial, the weakest charge of all, “unlicensed money transmission”.

What does it mean to transmit money? According to prosecutors, custodial control over user funds is no longer a requirement to need an MSB license; “a USB cable transfers data from one device to another, and a frying pan transfers heat from a stove to the contents of the pan, although neither situation involves exercising ‘control’ over what is being transferred.” If the DoJ can indict a frying pan, then USB manufacturers better lawyer up! 

Remarkably, even FinCEN disagrees with the DoJ’s novel legal interpretation of what constitutes a money transmitter, as guidance at the time said non-custodial services could not be money transmitters because they do not exert control over money flows. FinCEN reasserted this fact to the DoJ prosecutors in a written statement, but they went forward with the charges anyway. This critical fact was withheld from the defense for almost a year, when it was finally revealed, “the judge denied the motion to present this evidence in the hearings, without even any argument,” according to Rodriguez. Critics argue this misconduct by the DoJ prosecutors is a violation of Brady v. Maryland, denying access to material that could have undermined the unlicensed money transmission charges, or, as Donald J. Trump would put it, this prosecution was rigged.  

Zack Shapiro, head of policy at the Bitcoin Policy Institute, warns the Trump administration and American software industry about the potential ramifications of this legal case, arguing that “collapsing the distinction between developing a tool and operating a service would introduce an untenable level of risk for anyone building privacy-enhancing or security-critical software.”

“Rodriguez and Hill ultimately accepted plea agreements in the face of substantial sentencing exposure, even though government records undermined the central regulatory theory of the case,” Shapiro added in a letter published on the BPI website, asking the Trump admin to pardon the Samourai Wallet devs. 

Fundamentally, the prosecutorial approach in the Samourai Wallet case risks establishing an influential precedent that threatens the financial privacy of American citizens and stifles innovation in the U.S. crypto industry. It could shape future prosecutions and regulatory developments, potentially reclassifying non-custodial services as money transmitters under federal law—requiring national MSB registration with FinCEN—and prompting stricter state-level licensing in jurisdictions like New York or California.

Echoing the trial against Ross Ulbricht a decade earlier, this rigged case against Samourai Wallet was set up during the Biden administration with support from anti-crypto politicians whom Trump defeated in the 2025 elections with the popular mandate. During his campaign at the 2024 Bitcoin Nashville speech, Trump said, “I will always defend the right to self-custody,” and got major support from the Bitcoin and crypto industries through the shared vision of making the United States the crypto capital of the world.

“I pledge to the Bitcoin community that the day I take the oath of office, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ anti-crypto crusade will be over,” – Donald J. Trump, Nashville 2024. 

Many libertarians in the broader crypto industry see entrepreneurs like Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill, in the same category as Roman Storm and Roman Sterlingov of Tornado Cash and radio host Ian Freeman, as nothing more than political prisoners of an entrenched banking cartel. 

David Sacks, the venture capitalist and White House A.I. & Crypto Czar, should also pay attention to this issue; otherwise, what does it even mean to be the Crypto Czar? If Bitcoin wallets end up regulated the same as banks, despite having no counterparty risk, then whose interests are really being served, Mainstreet’s or Wallstreet’s?

While the Trump admin has been very conservative during the DoJ’s prosecution and trial of the Samourai Wallet devs — and perhaps, understandably so — that stage of the legal battle is over. 

It is time for the Trump administration to meet its promise to the American public and defend self-custody and the crypto industry in America. It is time for Trump to set the record straight and pardon Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill, as well as the Tornado Cash devs, while we are at it, lest we have another Ross Ulbricht-style miscarriage of justice. 

The Bitcoin and crypto industry is well behind this effort and has begun gathering signatures at Change.org, totaling over 5000 so far and growing, with the only official fundraising campaign at GiveSendGo.

Should Trump pardon the Samourai Wallet devs, he would be sending a clear signal to those who want surveillance-based, central bank digital currency systems to enslave Americans and the world that Americans will not stand for it. That the United States stands with the fundamental human right to privacy, dignity, due process, and the presumption of innocence, and not the tactics of intimidation developed by the likes of Joseph Gorbles, where privacy is a crime. Mass, indiscriminate surveillance, without a warrant, without due process, that is the real crime. 

This post Why Trump Should Pardon The Developers of Bitcoins Non Custodial Samourai Wallet first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt.

This piece is featured in the print edition of Bitcoin Magazine, The Freedom Issue. We’re sharing it here as a sample of the ideas explored throughout the full issue.

On November 3, 2025, the freedom for developers to build financial privacy software is on trial.

Samourai Wallet was a Bitcoin privacy wallet developed by Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill. It included specialized privacy tools that mixed the coins of wallet users in ways that required no third-party custody. The service’s servers helped coordinate “mixing” — methods to conceal the origin of coins and offer users some degree of forward privacy.

Rodriguez and Hill were arrested on April 24, 2024, on two charges: conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) accused the Samurai Wallet developers of facilitating over $2 billion in unlawful transactions through their cryptocurrency mixing service between 2015 and February 2024. Additionally, the DoJ alleges that the developers helped launder more than $100 million in criminal proceeds from illegal dark web markets, such as Silk Road and Hydra Market, as well as other hacking and fraud schemes.

The case of United States v. Rodriguez and Hill threatens the established precedents of code as speech on two major fronts.

The first regards the “$2 billion in unlawful transactions” accusation. The prosecution implies that software that aids or facilitates the movement of money in any way is indistinguishable from money transmission and that it requires a money transmitter license, even if that software never holds custody of user funds. This is entirely at odds with the dynamic that had previously been established by FinCEN’s 2019 guidance and other legacy financial regulations.

The second implication is that software that defends the privacy of communications or transfer of value is not protected speech under the United States’ First Amendment.

Code is Speech

The United States has a long and unique tradition of defending freedom of speech.

Over the years, many court cases have reinforced these values, creating precedents that let developers create great software and share it online. That kind of software has made the United States the technological epicenter of the world, from AI to cryptographic finance; the freedom to build software today is critical to the economic success of the nation.

Texas v. Johnson (1989), for example, established that burning the U.S. flag in protest was indeed protected speech even though the “speech” in this case was “functional”, i.e., expressed in the destruction of the flag. 

In the 1990s, with the rise of the internet, landmark cases like Bernstein v. United States (1996-1999) established that discussions about cryptography — specifically the sharing of source code involving cryptographic algorithms — was not a “munition” governed and regulated by the Arms Export Control Act and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. On the contrary, the publication of source code explaining how cryptography worked was expressive speech and thus fully protected under the First Amendment.

The Bernstein case marked a critical victory for the Cypherpunks of the ’90s, whose contributions to open source software laid the foundations for Bitcoin: Many of the technologies that Satoshi Nakamoto used in its construction were indeed invented in the internet forums of the time. It was there that the Cypherpunks discussed the application of cryptography to the defense of freedom of speech, digital privacy, and civil rights. 

In the Universal City Studios v. Corley (2001) case, however, something shifted slightly. Jon Lech Johansen, a Norwegian teenager, wrote software that jail-broke copyrighted movies from software locks placed there by Universal Studios, making movies playable in Linux systems. Eric Corley, a U.S. journalist, published the software online, which led to a massive lawsuit spearheaded by Universal Studios. 

This landmark case turned on the question of whether something is speech or conduct in the realm of software. It established that when speech in the form of software gained “function”, such as the breaking of a DVD encryption lock, it suddenly became a tool and could become subject to regulation.

While Corley’s free speech protections were eventually reaffirmed in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, the distinction between source code publications as a form of expression and functional software as a tool that can be regulated was established. 

Despite the rulings — Corley even removed the copy of the DeCSS piracy software from his website — the damage was done. Internet civil disobedience spread the software far and wide, and the piracy wars of the 2000s raged on for years. They demonstrated not just the limits of free speech protections but also the limits of trying to enforce digital censorship.

Information simply wants to be free.

The Samourai case could face a similar challenge, and it is unclear whether “code is speech” can be a sufficient defense for Rodriguez and Hill. 

Chink in the Armor

A controversial project that created as many loyal superusers as it did haters and critics is now on the front lines of the Biden-era lawfare, and the principle that code is speech appears to be at stake once again. 

As a result, it has forced critics — myself included — to rise to the defense of a wallet that, while quite successful in its adoption, made many design choices that were questionable and for which they may be judged harshly in the coming months.

One potential weak point in their defense is their alleged enabling of sanctioned parties to “launder money” through their coin-mixing service. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) went as far as to embed a screenshot of the Samourai wallet account welcoming sanctioned oligarchs:

Coin mixers are akin to the virtual private networks (VPNs) used by law-abiding citizens and criminals alike. For privacy to exist, one must be able to hide in a crowd, their choices and personal information shielded from prying eyes, and to be revealed or judged after due process.

With that, the Samourai Wallet founders did not make themselves a difficult target. If the allegations by the prosecution are true, and they knowingly helped dress up wolves in sheep’s clothing, then they likely will have to pay a price for violating sanctions doctrines. A deeply chilling legal precedent could then be set, shaping the future of digital finance and directly harming the proliferation of such technology in the United States. 

However, there may be hope in the change to a more crypto-friendly administration under the leadership of President Trump.

“I Will Defend Your Right to Self Custody” – Trump

During his keynote speech at the Bitcoin Conference in Nashville in 2024, Trump made a promise, one that he still has the opportunity to keep. 

He promised to “defend the right to self custody”.

Without financial privacy, self custody is dramatically weakened, as seen by the growing wave of physical attacks on Bitcoiners in recent years. The liberty previously enjoyed by software developers to build self-custodial Bitcoin tools like Samourai Wallet, is on trial.

The chilling effect

The U.S. government has, for the most part, learned not to attack an already hardened legal precedent like freedom of expression. However, by going after the developers and maintainers of Samourai Wallet directly, the DoJ had a net negative effect on financial privacy in the U.S., and it spread a chilling effect among Bitcoin software developers. 

Immediately following the arrest of Rodriguez and Hill, Phoenix Wallet, arguably the best self-custodial Lightning wallet in the industry, exited the U.S. app stores — a decision made to protect their business from a U.S. government that appeared hostile to Bitcoin self-custody software. (As of April 2025, Phoenix is once more available in the U.S.) Wasabi Wallet, another financial privacy software company, stopped offering its noncustodial mixing services to the public. And wallets like Blink from El Salvador geofenced American users from their app entirely. 

If Trump is going to really defend the right to self custody, and stop the eventual deployment of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the United States (another election promise), he will have to address the need for financial privacy in the digital era and reverse the injustices set in course by the Biden administration. 

In one way or another, these cases will leave a mark on his presidential legacy.

Foundations of a CBDC

The Biden administration continued to sue, scrutinize, and debank the crypto industry — a policy that started under Obama with Operation Choke Point and ultimately resulted in Silicon Valley CEOs losing access to their bank accounts altogether. 

A sharp example of permissioned financial rails being abused was also witnessed in Canada in 2022 when the bank accounts of truckers and donors were frozen during the Freedom Convoy COVID protests in Ottawa, following the invocation of the Emergencies Act by then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Furthermore, top U.S. officials from the Treasury have stated that central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) would need to have strong identity tracking, even while “balancing consumer privacy”, striking at a trade-off that’s sacrificing user privacy altogether:

“The Report notes that ‘a CBDC system could increase the amount of data generated on users and transactions,’ which would pose ‘privacy and cyber security risks, but … offer opportunities for proper … supervision and law enforcement efforts.’”

Among the ideals of justice and fairness laid out by the Constitution is one where the privacy of the individual is granted by default, where there is a presumption of innocence, and the prosecution must prove the accused’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

The Fourth Amendment rights of innocent Americans who were using Samourai Wallet in particular are under attack by the kind of lawfare seen in the Samourai case:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Our homes are no longer just made of brick and stone, and our words no longer contained within those four walls. They are often digitized and transmitted, and so is the value they hold and move. Like cash in a sealed envelope, the use of financial privacy software naturally fits the protections of the Fourth Amendment, especially when no custody of funds is ever taken by the infrastructure facilitating its transit. 

Yet the few tools that protect this default access to privacy have been systematically attacked and undermined in the digital age, akin to the government suing envelope manufacturers as money launderers for obfuscating the contents of a person’s exchanges.

It’s actually much worse. While developers of privacy software like Samourai Wallet are harassed, legacy financial institutions, in their attempt to be compliant with KYC and AML regulations — the same class of regulations used to prosecute Samourai Wallet today — are forced to gather excessive private information from their customers in order to report anything “suspicious” to the authorities.

These KYC data vaults are regularly hacked. Indeed, it’s impossible to keep them secure as they grow in size and become targets for cybercriminals, which exposes everyday people to organized crime in the form of identity theft and fraud. By 2012 in the U.S, identity fraud cost more than all other forms of theft combined, reaching over $21 billion, and this figure rose to $52 billion by the 2020s.

This surveillance infrastructure is doing profound and irreversible harm to U.S. citizens and the legacy financial system as a whole. 

It is nevertheless sold as the necessary evil that stops money laundering by cartels and ends terrorist financing via sanctions through mechanisms like the OFAC list. And yet it is these same banks who are regularly busted laundering hundreds of millions of dollars for cartels, like TD Bank last year, which had to pay a record fine to U.S. regulators of $3 billion. It was accused of failing to surveil $18 trillion in transactions, of which close to $700 million was allegedly moved by drug cartels. Despite all the regulations and compliance, it turns out it was the banks that were doing the bulk of the money laundering.

When it comes to sanctions, meanwhile, Russia has received the worst lot of U.S. sanctions in recent memory, perhaps in history, including freezing its foreign treasury reserves. Despite that, Russia has run over major territories in Ukraine during the invasion and managed to survive long enough to be in a very strong negotiating position on the other side of the conflict — effectively marking the end of the sanctions foreign policy regime. It is no coincidence that the Trump administration is so focused on tariffs, overseeing the flow of goods across borders instead of the flow of money. 

Also, let us not forget that when it comes to terrorist financing, it was the CIA that funded and trained the Afghan Mujaheddin in the ’80s, training guerrilla operatives like Osama bin Laden, who later on helped create Al Qaeda and carried out 9/11.  

None of these crimes were done by Bitcoin or Bitcoiners. But the consequences of these laws weigh heavily on civilian populations. And the exponential growth of identity theft, the demoralizing ironies of the war on cash, the micromanagement overhead of the public’s finances, and the chilling effect on privacy-oriented software developers are the direct consequence of the KYC panopticon being constructed all around us. 

All these policies can be summed up as flash points in the war on cash, a broad policy strategy of the pre-Trump era, that I believe was meant to set a foundation for the deployment of CBDCs, a state monstrosity that Trump specifically promised to protect us from.

Lesson Learned

The biggest concern I had with the Samourai Wallet’s mobile app was its backend design. Ambitious and commendable as it was to try and bring cutting-edge, self-custodial coin mixing to the masses, in order to achieve it, Samourai Wallet made some questionable compromises — compromises which competitors and critics doubted were worth the upside and which can be judged in the trial as well. The most obvious problem was the way the mobile client was said to handle the xpubs of their users.

Xpubs are very important cryptographic information in Bitcoin and crypto wallets. Similar to IP addresses in the world of VPNs, xpubs represent a key piece of identifying information for Bitcoin users. Anyone who has your xpub can deterministically recreate all public addresses you ever had or ever will have in that wallet, allowing them to know exactly what public Bitcoin addresses are within your control and which funds have moved through them.

In the marketing and debates about VPNs — which are in some sense the early web’s equivalent to Bitcoin mixers — IP addresses, and whether a service can or cannot keep IP logs, is critical to their credibility among a savvy user base. Services often boast about their processes and procedures around not keeping their users’ IP addresses, which, if shut down — as Samourai Wallet has been — could end up in the hands of prosecutors, compromising the browsing history of their users.

In the case of Samourai Wallet and xpubs, a similar rule of thumb should apply. Internet users throughout the decades have discovered that paranoia about the quality of the tools and implementations pays off in the end. This lesson has been learned the hard way as VPN services and privacy-oriented email providers have been hacked or seized by government prosecutors. If there’s user data accumulated, the service can become a juicy target.

We don’t yet know what data Samourai Wallet had in the 17 terabytes confiscated by the U.S. government. Most of it is likely on-chain analysis done by their research arm OXT. But if user data was kept, then the privacy of many of those users might be at risk as well.

The Trump Legacy? 

It is fascinating that the future of software developers and their freedom to build private self-custody software will be judged and shaped in an age where Michael Saylor argues that the coin is not a currency and Trump, the self-branded crypto president, promises to protect your self-custody rights.

As Rodriguez and Hill stand trial, those wrapping themselves in the orange flag and those who can influence public policy about financial privacy will also be on trial in the court of public opinion; history will be their judge.

For us plebs who cannot influence public policy directly and can only judge the tools we use on their merit, there is a moral to this story. Compromising on privacy for convenience — to avoid the learning curve otherwise required — does not come without risk.

And on a long enough time frame, only the paranoid crypto-anarchists survive.

This piece is featured in the print edition of Bitcoin Magazine, The Freedom Issue. We’re sharing it here as a sample of the ideas explored throughout the full issue.

This post The Samourai Wallet Trial: A Test of Financial Privacy and Developer Freedoms first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt.

Simple Proof, the bitcoin-based document timestamping company, recently announced official partnerships with El Salvador’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Environment to protect

government records using the Bitcoin blockchain technology. The announcement was made during the Bitcoin Histórico conference at the National Theatre in San Salvador, where CEO Carlos Toriello presented alongside OpenTimestamps creator and Bitcoin Core Contributor Peter Todd.

The collaboration marks El Salvador’s continued leadership in applying Bitcoin technology beyond financial applications. Both ministries have begun registering official documents on the Bitcoin blockchain, with verified records now publicly accessible through dedicated government portals.

“Bitcoin is not just digital money — it’s also a clock that no one controls. This allows us to certify with precision the exact moment a document was created, guaranteeing its authenticity and protecting the country’s history forever… We’re helping ensure that the country’s history is preserved intact and can be verified directly on Bitcoin, without intermediaries,” said Carlos Toriello, CEO of Simple Proof, in a press release shared with Bitcoin Magazine.

The company has had multiple successful pilot programs in the past, including one in Screven County, Georgia, in the United States and another in Guatemala, where it had a direct influence on the 2023 elections. 

This deployment builds on Simple Proof’s previous work in El Salvador, where CUBO+ program graduation certificates became the first public documents in the country registered via the Bitcoin blockchain. 

The Ministry of Environment’s timestamped documents, including national reports and public files, are available at blockchain.ambiente.gob.sv. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs offers verification of institutional reports and records at rree.gob.sv/logros-y-memorias. 

Peter Todd, creator of OpenTimestamps, the platform and protocol used in part to time-stamp critical data on the Bitcoin blockchain, said in the press release that, “With a single transaction, we can protect millions of documents without congesting the network or altering its monetary function,” noting that the system stores only cryptographic hashes rather than actual documents on Bitcoin.

The project positions El Salvador as a global reference for using blockchain technology in government

information management, strengthening the transparency and public trust of democratic institutions and processes, by eliminating the possibility of document tampering.

This post El Salvador Partners with Simple Proof to Timestamp Government Documents on Bitcoin Blockchain first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt.

President Donald Trump made headlines Sunday in a wide-ranging interview on 60 Minutes, emphasizing that maintaining U.S. dominance in the crypto space is a top priority for him. 

“I only care about one thing: will we be number one in crypto,” Trump told Norah O’Donnell, highlighting what he described as the importance of the sector due to global competition.

President Trump framed crypto as a high-stakes, winner-takes-all industry, likening it to artificial intelligence in terms of national importance. 

“In crypto, it’s a kind of industry where basically you’re going to have number one and you’re not going to have a number two. And right now we’re number one by a long shot,” he said. 

President Trump also pointed to China’s booming crypto initiatives, noting, “China is getting into it very big,” and insisted that U.S. leadership is crucial to prevent other nations from dominating the market.

The President credited his sons with being more engaged in the industry than he is, while highlighting that their business pursuits demonstrate the sector’s growth and potential. 

Trump also suggested that his previous campaigns, which openly supported crypto, helped secure what he called the “crypto vote,” framing his advocacy as a continuation of his broader efforts to bolster American technological leadership.

Trump’s pardon of CZ 

The whole conversation around crypto also touched on Trump’s semi-controversial pardon of Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, known as CZ. 

U.S. prosecutors accused Binance of allowing illicit transactions with sanctioned entities and failing to implement proper anti-money-laundering controls. CZ pleaded guilty, stepped down as CEO, and paid a personal fine of $50 million.

On October 23, President Donald Trump granted a full pardon to Zhao following months of lobbying by Zhao and allies, who argued his prosecution was politically motivated, and comes amid his efforts to explore partnerships with Trump family crypto ventures. 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt framed the move as ending the “Biden Administration’s war on crypto.” The decision cleared Zhao’s record and could reshape U.S. policy toward cryptocurrency.

Trump defended the pardon in his 60 Minutes interview, framing it as a corrective action against what he described as political bias from the Biden administration. 

“I know nothing about the guy, other than I hear he was a victim of weaponization by government… It’s a corrupt government,” Trump said, emphasizing that his decision was guided by his belief in protecting U.S. crypto leadership rather than personal connections or political gain.

This post Trump Doubles Down on Crypto Leadership, Defends CZ Pardon on 60 Minutes first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Even as Washington remains hobbled by a partial government shutdown, momentum for U.S. crypto market structure legislation is quietly reaching new heights.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong says the industry is “90%” of the way there, describing unprecedented bipartisan cooperation among senators working to finalize the long-awaited regulatory framework for digital assets.

Armstrong, who spent this week meeting with both Senate Democrats and Republicans, said the last few sticking points of the CLARITY Act — including rules for decentralized finance (DeFi) and stablecoin rewards — are close to being resolved. 

“Both sides are working hard to figure out the final 10%, and we’re getting close,” he said in a social media post. “We’re bullish on getting a bill passed by year-end, and hopeful it’s out of Committee by Thanksgiving.”

The Coinbase chief’s optimism comes amid a surge of engagement between lawmakers and crypto executives, marking one of the most serious bipartisan pushes to bring clarity to digital asset regulation since Congress first began debating the issue years ago.

Bipartisan crypto breakthrough in July

The legislation at the center of these discussions — the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (CLARITY Act) — passed the House of Representatives in July with a strong bipartisan majority of 294–137. 

The bill now sits before the Senate Banking Committee, chaired by Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), with hopes it could advance to the Senate floor before the end of the year.

In a CNBC interview on Wednesday, Armstrong described “very productive” meetings with senators from both parties, calling the level of collaboration a positive sign for the U.S. crypto industry.

According to multiple people familiar with the meetings, senior lawmakers including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) attended or participated in discussions with Armstrong and other crypto leaders such as Kraken co-CEO David Ripley, Uniswap Labs founder Hayden Adams, and Chainlink Labs’ Sergey Nazarov.

The CLARITY Act seeks to end years of regulatory ambiguity by clearly distinguishing which digital assets qualify as securities under the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and which fall under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

Under the bill’s framework, sufficiently decentralized networks would fall under CFTC oversight, while tokens with more centralized control or that function as investment contracts would remain under SEC jurisdiction.

The legislation also introduces clearer rules for decentralized finance, secondary trading markets, and custody services — areas where the lack of uniform federal guidance has long frustrated both innovators and investors.

DeFi and stablecoin legislation

Still, the final 10% of negotiations may prove the toughest. One of the key unresolved questions is how to regulate decentralized finance platforms. 

Armstrong has urged lawmakers to focus oversight on decentralized intermediaries — such as interfaces or aggregators — rather than attempting to regulate open-source protocols themselves.

Another area of tension involves stablecoin rewards, which Armstrong says the banking lobby is working to eliminate. Coinbase and other industry advocates argue that consumers should be able to earn yield on regulated stablecoin holdings, similar to how traditional savings accounts pay interest.

These debates underscore the competing visions within Congress: Democrats remain focused on preventing illicit finance and ensuring consumer protection, while Republicans emphasize innovation and competitiveness.

Despite the bipartisan goodwill, the timing remains precarious. The ongoing government shutdown has slowed committee work and pushed back the formal markup of the bill. Some lawmakers, including Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), have expressed skepticism that the committee is ready to move forward, citing unanswered questions about regulatory authority and industry influence.

Still, supporters say the momentum is undeniable. Sen. Lummis, who has long championed digital asset legislation, recently told attendees at the SALT Wyoming Blockchain Symposium that she expects the market structure bill to reach the president’s desk “before the end of the year — hopefully before Thanksgiving.”

This post Crypto Market Structure Bill Gains Bipartisan Momentum as Coinbase’s Armstrong Says “We’re 90% There” first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Recent threats against the rights of bitcoiners to transact in the manner they deem fit led to the creation of Save Our Wallets. Done in collaboration with the Bitcoin Policy Institute, CoinCenter, the Bitcoin Design Foundation, and many regional Bitcoin hubs around the United States, the organization recently launched the “Satoshi Needs You!” campaign.

Satoshi needs all of you to rally together to ensure that the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act (BRCA) provisions are included in the coming version of the CLARITY Act, to ensure that self-custodial software tools in the Bitcoin ecosystem remain a protected thing, unencumbered by financial regulations designed to restrict businesses actually taking control of users’ funds.

The trials this summer prosecuted by the Department of Justice (DOJ) against the developers of Samourai Wallet and Tornado Cash have set dangerous precedents by prosecuting developers of open-source and self-custodial software, which at no time gave developers control over user funds in any way, and flies directly against standing guidance from both the DOJ as well as FinCEN, the regulator in charge of the application of the relevant regulations from both cases.

The “Satoshi Needs You!” campaign aims to raise awareness of the current threats to bitcoiners’ rights and rally people to get involved in the push to cement these rights in explicit regulation.

“This is a moment of both great danger and great opportunity for the bitcoin network” said Kyle Olney, co-founder of SaveOurWallets.org. “We can’t take anything for granted until our fundamental rights to economic liberty in the digital realm have been codified into law. We need EVERY bitcoiner to get involved, contact their representatives in Washington DC, and ensure this congress continues to execute on pro-Bitcoin policy. We have a responsibility to fight for our freedoms like the right to transact, and to pass those rights on for future generations.”

Visit SaveOurWallets.org to learn more about the CLARITY Act and how you can get involved in the fight to include the BRCA provisions.

This post Save Our Wallets: Bitcoiners Must Act To Defend Their Right To Transact first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Shinobi.

One month ago, Harshvardhan (“Hash”), an alumni of the MIT Bitcoin Club and an organizer for the MIT Freedom Tech Expo, told me in an interview about how a friend of his who is a social worker in Nepal and who was on the ground during the recent protests in the country doesn’t like Bitcoin.

“There’s a lot of people with left-leaning ideology who still think bitcoin is a capitalistic tool, and they’re not very comfortable with it yet,” explained Hash.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this point he made since we spoke.

As someone who was formerly more politically Liberal, I still have a lot of friends and acquaintances who seemingly shudder at the mere thought of my writing about Bitcoin for a living. I get the feeling that they think I’ve become some right-wing fanatic who only cares about money.

I can see why they might think that (despite it not being true). In the U.S., Bitcoin has very much become synonymous with the Trump administration and most of what the average person sees about it in the mainstream media is reporting on its price going up or down.

Put another way, if you’re not intentionally searching for stories about how Bitcoin facilitates financial inclusion, the freedom to transact, and protection from inflation/currency debasement, then you aren’t likely to find them, which means that the average person hardly — if ever — gets exposure to the human rights side of the Bitcoin story.

And so if you’re looking for some examples or thoughts to share with friends of yours who may be on the political left and don’t like Bitcoin as a result, I’ve included a few below:

Financial Inclusion

One of the most powerful stories of Bitcoin enabling financial inclusion is the story playing out in the informal settlement (i.e., slum) of Kenya’s Kibera right now.

Kibera is the largest informal settlement in Africa, and thanks to the hands-on work that Afribit Kibera is doing to educate members of the Kibera community about how to use Bitcoin, more and more of Kenya’s poorest and most financially vulnerable have been brought into the digital economy and are saving for the first time in their lives.

The story of the work Afribit Kibera is doing was highlighted in a recent segment by the BBC:

One of the points not mentioned in this segment, though, is that many of the residents of Kibera are refugees from other African nations and are currently ineligible for a national ID.

Without a national ID, these residents cannot use M-Pesa, a digital payments system that’s ubiquitous in Kenya.

However, with a Bitcoin Lightning wallet and Tando, a homegrown Kenyan app that enables payment in bitcoin and settlement in Kenyan shillings, these members of the community can take part in the digital economy, as neither require Know Your Customer (KYC) checks. (Yes, I know, some custodial Lightning wallets require varying degrees of KYC, but noncustodial Lightning wallets don’t.)

Freedom to Transact

Most of us in the West take for granted our freedom to transact over digital payment rails like PayPal, CashApp, or Revolut, which means we haven’t had much reason to think about how devastating it would be if our accounts via those services, or our bank accounts, were frozen or shut down.

However, activists and dissidents around the world, especially those living under authoritarian regimes, see their accounts closed often when they speak out against the powers that be. Debanking people or organizations that challenge the power of authoritarian rulers has become one of the first moves in the dictator’s playbook.

One of the most flagrant cases of this is when the Putin regime shut down the bank accounts of opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation.

With that said, we also saw a wave of debanking in the United States under the Biden administration. During Operation Choke Point 2.0, the Biden administration debanked a number of Bitcoin and crypto companies, seemingly for no reason other than that they were politically out of favor.

This proves that, while the banking system and fintech companies are technically still private institutions, it only takes a certain amount of pressure from the powers that be — even democratically-elected officials — to stop people and companies from being able to transact.

In her book Broken Money, Lyn Alden highlights the importance of bitcoin as it pertains to this issue.

She states that “self-custodial financial services force governments to actually charge people with a crime before they can use pressure to freeze their accounts.”

Alden added that Bitcoin is bigger than political ideology in this regard.

“[Bitcoin] is not a ‘right or left’ issue, because one merely needs to imagine their least-favorite politician winning the next election, or two or three elections from now,” she wrote.

Freedom from Inflation

Many who are unfamiliar with Bitcoin, don’t understand the significance of its capped supply (There will only ever be 21 million bitcoin).

A perfectly finite supply of money contrasts starkly with fiat currencies, which have no supply cap. Fiat currencies can be printed to no end, which devalues the time and labor of the users of these currencies.

Those of us living in the United States have felt the pain of this currency debasement, as inflation levels have been notably high here. However, it’s important to note that the U.S. dollar is essentially the prettiest pig in the pen when it comes to fiat currencies.

Most other currencies are being debased at a more alarming rate, with the most severe instances of this being what has happened in countries such as Venezuela, Lebanon, Argentina, and Turkey.

This is why when Sabina Waithira, one of the co-founders of the aforementioned Tando, teaches university students in Kenya about bitcoin, she highlights that it offers freedom from inflation. 

This sort of freedom is particularly important in a country with a currency that has been inflating at levels as high as 14% annually since the mid-2000s.

Bitcoin Is Politically Neutral

Since Bitcoin is an open protocol and isn’t governed by one person or institution, it isn’t inherently political.

Sure, the Trump administration has taken a pro-Bitcoin stance, which may be offputting to those on the political left, but that doesn’t mean Bitcoin doesn’t facilitate notions like financial inclusion, an issue that Liberal politicians tend to support.

So, if your politics are more aligned with Liberal ideology, be sure to check out the work of The Progressive Bitcoiner nonprofit as well as Jason Maier’s A Progressive’s Case for Bitcoin.

And if you find yourself politically homeless but still a proponent for human rights as they’re enabled by Bitcoin, be sure to learn more about what the Human Rights Foundation is doing via its Financial Freedom division and subscribe to its Financial Freedom newsletter.

Bitcoin is a tool for all human beings — those across the spectrum of the political right and left — and it’s high time that this message becomes more widespread.

This post Bitcoin Transcends the Left-Right Political Divide — It’s a Tool for Human Rights first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Frank Corva.

Senate Democrats called on Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, to provide more details about his personal crypto holdings, raising questions about potential conflicts of interest.

Led by Sen. Adam Schiff (D—Calif.), eight senators requested that Witkoff explain why his latest ethics disclosure showed ongoing stakes in a Trump-linked cryptocurrency and other crypto-related business entities.

“Your failure to divest your ownership in these assets raises serious questions about your compliance with federal ethics laws and, more importantly, ability to serve the American people over your own financial interests,” the senators wrote in the letter.

Zach Witkoff co-founded World Liberty Financial with members of the Trump family in 2024. Zach Witkoff, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and Barron Trump are listed as founders. 

Steve Witkoff and Donald Trump are listed as “co-founders emeritus” and are not actively involved in the day-to-day operations.

The firm said in May that Witkoff was in the process of fully divesting from the project. 

While he has since sold a $120 million stake in his real estate company, his most recent ethics disclosure, dated Aug. 13, indicates that he still holds cryptocurrency for World Liberty Financial, as well as shares in WC Digital Fi LLC — an entity linked to Witkoff and his family—and portions of two other crypto-related businesses, WC Digital SC LLC and SC Financial Technologies LLC.

Democrats argue that Witkoff’s ongoing crypto business interests could create conflicts of interest, particularly given his diplomatic role in the Middle East and World Liberty Financial’s business ties to the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.).

The inquiry comes after a New York Times investigation revealed Witkoff’s involvement in a multibillion-dollar AI project between the U.S. and U.A.E. coincided with World Liberty Financial negotiating its own multibillion-dollar deal with an Emirati state venture firm. 

In May, the U.S. signed an agreement to build the largest AI campus outside the U.S., while two weeks earlier, World Liberty Financial announced a $2 billion investment from U.A.E. state company MGX into crypto exchange Binance was paid in its USD1 stablecoin.

Fortune was the first to report this news.

Coinbase CEO to discuss crypto in D.C.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong is traveling to Washington, D.C. today, to meet with Senate Democrats, Republicans, and White House officials to discuss ongoing crypto market structure. 

Armstrong said momentum for market structure clarity is “at an all-time high,” noting bipartisan commitment to legislation even amid a government shutdown. 

He emphasized the need to work toward getting a bill to President Trump’s desk, highlighting ongoing efforts to provide clarity and oversight for the crypto industry.

This post Senate Democrats Probe for Answers on Trump’s Crypto Dealings  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has been awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, recognized for what the Norwegian Nobel Committee called her “tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela.” 

But for many in the Bitcoin community, the win carries another layer of meaning — because Machado isn’t just a democracy activist. She’s also one of few (but growing) global political figures who has openly embraced Bitcoin as a tool of resistance against authoritarianism.

The Nobel Committee described Machado, 58, as “a woman who keeps the flame of democracy going amidst a growing darkness.” 

It’s a description that fits not just her fight against the current regime but her larger vision of how technology — and decentralized money — can empower citizens when governments fail them.

“I’m in shock,” Machado said after the announcement. “I am just one person. I certainly do not deserve this.”

“I dedicate this prize to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause,” she wrote on X.

A recognition for courage — and for staying

Machado’s political story is one of persistence under threat. Barred from running in last year’s presidential election — which international observers widely dismissed as rigged — she was forced into hiding but refused to leave Venezuela. 

The Nobel Committee praised her as “a key, unifying figure in a brutal authoritarian state that is now suffering a humanitarian and economic crisis.”

That crisis is something Machado has long tried to explain in global forums: Venezuela’s economic collapse, she argues, was not an accident but a predictable outcome of financial repression and state control of money.

And it’s here that her views intersect directly with Bitcoin.

Machado: Bitcoin is a ‘lifeline’

In an interview first aired by Bitcoin Magazine last year, Machado spoke at length about Venezuela’s economic collapse and the role Bitcoin has played in helping citizens survive it.

“The Venezuelan bolívar has lost 14 zeros,” she said, recalling how inflation once hit 1.7 million percent. “This financial repression — rooted in state-sponsored looting, theft, and unchecked money printing — has destroyed our economy despite our vast oil wealth.”

For many Venezuelans, Bitcoin became the only alternative. It has allowed families to store value outside the collapsing bolívar, receive remittances without confiscation, and even fund their escapes from the country.

Machado called Bitcoin a “lifeline” for Venezuelans, a way to bypass government-controlled exchange rates. She proposed including Bitcoin in Venezuela’s future national reserves as the country seeks to recover its stolen wealth and rebuild from the dictatorship.

Machado also proposed including Bitcoin in Venezuela’s future national reserves as part of the country’s post-dictatorship recovery.

“We envision Bitcoin as part of our national reserves, helping rebuild what the dictatorship stole,” she told Bitcoin Magazine.

Machado’s emphasis on transparency echoes one of Bitcoin’s core principles — a public ledger that is incorruptible by design. It’s an idea that resonates with freedom and justice. 

This post Maria Corina Machado Wins Nobel Peace Prize — Could She Become the First ‘Bitcoin Nobel’ Winner? first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Yesterday, two members of the New York State (NYS) Senate introduced Senate Bill 8518 (S8518), which imposes excise taxes on digital asset mining using the proof-of-work consensus mechanism, making it even more difficult than it already is for bitcoin miners to operate in the state.

S8518, which was co-sponsored by Liz Krueger (D) and Andrew Gounardes (D), stipulates that bitcoin and digital asset miners in the state will pay increased taxes based on the amount of energy that they use.

The rates are as follows:

• 0 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for every kWh less than or equal to 2.25 million kWh per year
• 2 cents per kWh for every kWh between 2.25 million and 5 million kWh per year
• 3 cents per kWh for every kWh between 5 million and 10 million kWh per year
• 4 cents per kWh for every kWh between 10 million and 20 million kWh per year
• 5 cents per kWh for every kWh over 20 million kWh per year

The proposed taxes will not apply to miners who utilize renewable energy sources, as defined by Section 66-P of NYS public service law, to power their facilities. The mining facility would also have to “not [be] operated in conjunction with an electric corporation’s transmission and distribution facilities,” according to the bill.

The bill also stipulates that all taxes, interest, and penalties collected as a result of this potential law be used to subsidize energy customers enrolled in NYS energy affordability programs.

The introduction of this bill comes approximately one year after NYS’ digital asset mining moratorium expired. The moratorium banned any digital asset mining that required the use of fossil fuels.

Now that bitcoin mining companies can technically operate in the state again, they will likely think twice about doing so, as the increased taxes will likely cause these companies to look to set up facilities elsewhere in the U.S..

This new bill is just another in a series of bad regulatory proposals from Democratic lawmakers and bureaucrats in NYS that disincentivize the Bitcoin and crypto companies from setting up in NYS.

Instead of thinking about the jobs that the bitcoin mining industry could bring to upstate New York, home to a number of cities and regions that suffer from poverty in this post-industrial era, Democrats seem more hellbent on sticking it to bitcoin miners.

This post New York Targets Bitcoin Mining with Proposed Tax Hike Bill first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Frank Corva.