According to Ki Young Ju, the founder and CEO of CryptoQuant, crypto mixing services should not be considered illegal, in response to the recent arrest of the founders of Samourai Wallet.
Ki wrote in an X post on April 25 that the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) had arrested the pioneers of Bitcoin privacy. As previously reported by Cointelegraph on April 24, Keonne Rodriguez, the CEO of Samourai Wallet, and William Hill, the chief technology officer, were each charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business.
The arrest has caused widespread concern within the crypto community, with many fearing that it could be an indication of the U.S. government’s increased efforts to crackdown on the industry. Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower, described the arrests as an attack on financial privacy in an X post on April 24.
The DOJ claims that Samourai Wallet facilitated over $2 billion in illegal transactions and helped launder more than $100 million from illegal dark web markets.
This isn’t the first time that authorities have targeted privacy-focused technologies such as cryptocurrency mixers. In August 2023, the U.S. DOJ charged the developers of Tornado Cash, a crypto mixer, with money laundering, sanctions violations, and operating an unlicensed money transfer business. The three developers, including Alexey Pertsev, were arrested in August 2022 shortly after the U.S. Treasury sanctioned Tornado Cash for allegedly being used by the North Korean Lazarus Group to launder over a billion dollars worth of crypto.
The arrest of the Samourai Wallet founders has sparked concerns about financial privacy and its implications for the crypto industry. It remains to be seen how this will impact Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies.