It has lately option to my consideration that extra than one U.S. Congressmen who’ve taken very public pro-Bitcoin stances are usually no longer even attentive to the currently unfolding prosecution of Samourai Wallet developers Keonne Rodriguez and William Hill.
This is merely thoughts-boggling to me as a Bitcoiner. The fresh approved prosecution of the Samourai workers, as well to the relevant prosecutions against Roman Sterlingov, accused of working the mixer Bitcoin Fog, and Roman Storm and Roman Semenov, two developers at the abet of Tornado Money, are a very grand approved cases impacting the sovereign and non-public exercise of Bitcoin on the docket right now time.
Roman Sterlingov is sitting in detention center accurate now after a conviction attained with zero laborious proof in anyway. His conviction used to be based mostly entirely entirely on nothing extra than unproven assertions by blockchain diagnosis company Chainalysis. The Samourai and Tornado Money developers are being prosecuted under money laundering legislation for developing purely self custodial instrument that, in no conditions wherein their instrument also can presumably be historical, gave them any abet watch over over person funds.
The truth that that is no longer excellent no longer on the radar of any Congressman or Congresswoman who claims to be pro-Bitcoin, nonetheless no longer being loudly talked about, is absurd.
So, let’s attain one thing to commerce that. I’m calling on every United States citizen reading this to take the obtain letter under, have it in precisely, and ship it to your congressman or congresswoman — namely when you happen to are in a district with a representative claiming publicly to be pro-Bitcoin.
This article is a Steal. Opinions expressed are totally the creator’s and accept no longer necessarily replicate those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Journal.
[Your Name]
[Your Address]
[City, State, Zipcode]
[Email]
[Phone Number]
[Date]
The Consultant [or] Senator [Congressman or Congresswoman’s Name]
[Congressman/Congresswoman’s Address]
[City, State, Zipcode]
I’m writing as a concerned citizen of [your State]. I fancy to speak to your consideration a foremost topic regarding the prison prosecution of commence source developers writing instrument for the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency ecosystem.
Keonne Rodriguez and William Hill of Samourai Wallet, Roman Semenov and Roman Storm of Tornado Money, are being prosecuted for diversified acts of or assertions of conspiracy to commit money laundering. All four of these men have performed nothing nonetheless construct and post commence source instrument that used to be/is freely in the market to the public.
A foundational reality of decentralized networks fancy Bitcoin is the flexibility their architecture provides to their customers to work together and transact with their money the usage of nothing nonetheless commence-source and freely in the market instrument that communicates with a decentralized computer network. When the usage of cryptocurrencies in this contrivance, nobody with the exception of the waste person of the instrument has any skill to manual, abet watch over, or restrict the switch of a person’s sources on these decentralized networks.
All four of these men have performed nothing beyond construct and honest freely in the market commence-source instrument with the honest of serving to waste customers of these networks give protection to their non-public privateness. American citizens have a accurate to privateness, namely financial privateness, which is why the Financial institution Secrecy Act mandates that financial institutions take measures to guard the security and confidentiality of American’s financial data.
Blockchains by their very nature, on the different hand, are public stores of data. For all americans to inform that the tips of the decentralized network are being adopted nicely, all americans must be ready to download and verify the whole thing of a blockchain’s transactional historic past. All americans’s transactional historic past. This lets in anyone who you transact with to study doubtlessly how unparalleled wealth you’ve got got, even to practice and be taught of future transactions you accomplish.
This is no longer excellent very sensitive data to have in the public arena usually, nonetheless it will fresh a in actuality serious possibility to americans’s bodily security. Incidents of kidnapping, bodily assault, and home invasion in converse to take hang of bitcoin from non-public americans have increased in frequency as its trace has increased.
Tool that enables customers to withhold their privateness while the usage of networks fancy Bitcoin is serious, no longer excellent to their privateness usually, nonetheless also to their bodily security. Both Samourai Wallet and Tornado Money attain so in a purely self-custodial system, that system no entity as a change of the waste customers themselves ever has abet watch over, or skill to manual, the transactions that are made. This also system that there isn’t any longer any approved entity that the brand new prices truly be aware to (i.e. a custodial financial institution arena to financial laws).
Individually, Roman Sterlingov has been convicted in prison court docket of working a custodial mixing provider historical to originate privateness on the Bitcoin network. While this provider used to be custodial, and as such would have financial regulatory tasks, the proof offered at trial of Roman’s involvement in working this provider is completely circumstantial. Many little print of the personality of this proof, and its questionability, exist on the public file from Sterlingov’s approved expert Tor Ekeland.
I strongly trail you to analyze these issues, and take action to approved these excessive miscarriages of justice on account of the applying of nonapplicable financial laws to commence-source instrument developers, and the whole flouting of the requirements to uncover proof beyond an more cost effective doubt to originate conviction in a prison proceeding.
[Only include the bold if your congressman/congresswoman is publicly pro-Bitcoin]
This might per chance occasionally be very important by contrivance of the freedom to exercise Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in a self-custodial and freedom-retaining contrivance. I am hoping to study your actions in Congress are residing up to your stance on public file by contrivance of Bitcoin as a policy instruct.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
Shinobi is an pseudonymous self taught educator in the Bitcoin space. He used to be the co-host of Block Digest, a news/tech oriented Bitcoin podcast, as well to What Bitcoin Did Tech Narrate with Peter McCormack which centered spherical explaining technical ideas to non-technical customers. That is all he’ll sigh us about himself.
