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Promote with Leviathan NewsSamourai Wallet co-founder Keonne Rodriguez, who is serving a five‑year U.S. federal prison sentence over his role in the Samourai Wallet bitcoin mixing service, has appealed from prison for Bitcoin donations to help cover roughly $2 million in legal debt and a $250,000 court‑ordered fine. Rodriguez said he has been “financially wiped out” by the case and warned supporters that he expects to serve his full federal sentence with no realistic prospect of early release or political intervention. Rodriguez and fellow co‑founder William Lonergan Hill were arrested in April 2024 and charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money‑transmitting business over Samourai’s privacy tools, including its Whirlpool coin‑mixing service. Prosecutors from the Southern District of New York alleged that Samourai facilitated over $237 million in criminal proceeds tied to darknet markets, drug trafficking, cyber intrusions, fraud, sanctioned jurisdictions, murder‑for‑hire schemes, and a child‑exploitation site. In July 2025, both men pleaded guilty to operating an unlicensed money‑transmitting business, and Rodriguez was sentenced in November 2025 to five years in prison, three years of supervised release, a $250,000 fine, and joint forfeiture obligations with Hill totaling just under $238 million in traceable criminal proceeds, of which about $6.37 million in fees has already been forfeited. From prison, Rodriguez’s fundraising appeal underscores the widening clash between privacy‑enhancing crypto tools and U.S. financial crime enforcement, a debate already sharpened by prosecutions such as Tornado Cash co‑founder Roman Storm. Supporters argue that targeting open‑source wallet developers for users’ activity threatens financial privacy, non‑custodial software, and the principle of “code as speech,” while U.S. authorities frame such tools as knowing facilitators of large‑scale money laundering. Rodriguez’s statement that he expects to serve his full sentence, despite prior public discussion of a possible presidential pardon, signals to the Bitcoin and privacy communities that legal and political avenues have largely been exhausted, leaving personal donations as his primary means to address the mounting debt.
AI-generated background, compiled from web sources — not editorial content.
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