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\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\nThe official, Matthew Galeotti, acting assistant attorney general in the DOJ\u2019s criminal division, made the powerful assurances on Thursday at an event hosted by the new crypto advocacy group, American Innovation Project. <\/span><\/p>\nHis words, met with vigorous applause, represented a dramatic and deliberate shift in tone from a department whose recent actions have sent a chill through the entire developer community.<\/span><\/p>\nA line in the sand after the storm<\/span><\/h2>\nGaleotti drew a firm line, promising that the DOJ would not weaponize the legal system to indirectly regulate the digital asset space.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cThe department will not use federal criminal statutes to fashion a new regulatory regime over the digital asset industry,\u201d<\/span>\u00a0he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\nThe department will not use indictments as a lawmaking tool. The department should not leave innovators guessing as to what could lead to criminal prosecution.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nThen came the centerpiece of his address, a clear and unambiguous declaration:\u00a0<\/span>\u201cmerely writing code without ill intent is not a crime.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nThis was not a vague promise. Galeotti directly addressed the legal statute used to convict the developers behind both Tornado Cash and Samourai Wallet, stating that the DOJ would not press charges under that code unless prosecutors have\u00a0<\/span>\u201cevidence that a defendant knew of the specific legal requirements and willfully violated it.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nHe went further, extending a shield to projects where\u00a0<\/span>\u201csoftware is truly decentralized and solely automates peer-to-peer transactions, and where a third party does not have custody and control over user assets.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nThe shadow of the Southern district<\/span><\/h2>\nBut those words of reassurance were delivered against the chilling backdrop of recent history. <\/span><\/p>\nThe speech comes on the heels of two high-profile and deeply controversial victories for US prosecutors. <\/span><\/p>\nMost prominent was the conviction of Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm for running an unlawful money transmitting business, a verdict that many in the industry saw as a direct criminalization of open-source code.<\/span><\/p>\nThis is the conflict that has haunted the industry: a seeming disconnect between the department\u2019s top brass and its most aggressive prosecutors. <\/span><\/p>\nAn April memo from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche had already signaled a more careful approach under the Trump administration, even disbanding the national cryptocurrency enforcement team. <\/span><\/p>\nYet despite that memo, the powerful Southern District of New York (SDNY) pressed forward with its cases against Storm and the Samourai Wallet developers, creating a climate of profound uncertainty and fear.<\/span><\/p>\nA cautious sigh of relief<\/span><\/h2>\nGaleotti\u2019s speech was a direct attempt to quell that fear and reassert a unified, top-down policy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cDevelopers of neutral tools with no criminal intent should not be held responsible for someone else\u2019s misuse of these tools,\u201d<\/span>\u00a0he stated.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\nIf a third party\u2019s misuse violates criminal law, then that third party should be prosecuted, not the well-intentioned developer.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nFor an industry that has felt under siege, pouring millions into lobbying efforts to protect its innovators, the speech felt like a potential turning point. <\/span><\/p>\nIt was a public validation of their core argument.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cThe fact that the DOJ acknowledged that software developers should not be held responsible for third parties\u2019 misuse of their code affirms what we have been advocating for years,\u201d<\/span>\u00a0said Amanda Tuminelli, executive director of the DeFi Education Fund, in a statement.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\nLet\u2019s celebrate this as a moment of progress and remember that there is still more work to be done to change the law permanently.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n
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A top DOJ official says writing code \u201cwithout ill intent is not a crime.\u201d The promise comes after the conviction of the Tornado Cash developer. The DOJ vows not to use indictments as a lawmaking tool for crypto. Standing before an anxious audience of cryptocurrency innovators in Wyoming, a senior official from the US Department […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402749,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[230,225,221,227,226,228,229,60,223,224,222],"class_list":["post-402747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency","tag-brave","tag-coinbase","tag-crypto","tag-decentralised","tag-decentralized","tag-decentralized-exchange","tag-erc-20","tag-featured","tag-meme-coin","tag-robinhood","tag-solana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402747"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":402750,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402747\/revisions\/402750"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}