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A conjugation of crypto firms has urged Congress to property the Department of Justice to amend an “unprecedented and overly expansive” mentation of laws that were utilized to complaint the developers of the crypto mixer Tornado Cash.
A March 26 letter signed by 34 crypto companies and advocator groups sent to the Senate Banking Committee, House Financial Services Committee and the House and Senate judiciary committees said the DOJ’s instrumentality connected unlicensed money-transmitting concern means “essentially each blockchain developer could beryllium prosecuted arsenic a criminal.”
The missive — led by the DeFi Education Fund and signed by the likes of Kraken and Coinbase — added that the Justice Department’s mentation “creates disorder and ambiguity” and “threatens the viability of U.S.-based bundle improvement successful the integer plus industry.”
The radical said the DOJ debuted its presumption “in August 2023 via transgression indictment” — the aforesaid clip it charged Tornado Cash developers Roman Storm and Roman Semenov with wealth laundering.
Storm has been released connected bail, has pleaded not blameworthy and wants the charges dropped. Semenov, a Russian national, is astatine large.
Source: DeFi Education Fund
The DOJ has filed akin charges against Samourai Wallet co-founders Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill, who person some pleaded not guilty.
The crypto group’s missive argued that 2 sections of the US Code specify a “money transmitting business” — Title 31 conception 5330, defining who indispensable beryllium licensed and Title 18 conception 1960, which criminalizes operating unlicensed.
It added that 2019 guidance from the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) gave examples of what money-transmitting activities and said that “if a bundle developer ne'er obtains possession oregon power implicit lawsuit funds, that developer is not operating a ‘money transmitting business.’”
The missive argued that the DOJ had taken a presumption that the explanation of a wealth transmitting concern nether conception 5330 “is not applicable to determining whether idiosyncratic is operating an unlicensed ‘money transmitting business’ nether Section 1960” contempt the “intentional similarity” successful some sections and FinCEN’s guidance.
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The radical accused the DOJ of ignoring some FinCEN’s guidance and parts of the instrumentality to prosecute its ain mentation of a money-transmitting concern erstwhile it charged Storm and Semenov.
They said the effect had seen “two abstracted US authorities agencies with conflicting interpretations of ‘money transmission’ — an unclear, unfair presumption for law-abiding manufacture participants and innovators.”
The missive said that if not addressed, the Justice Department’s mentation would exposure non-custodial bundle developers “within the scope of the U.S. to transgression liability.”
“The resulting, and precise rational, fearfulness among developers would efficaciously extremity the improvement of these technologies successful the United States.”
In January, Michael Lewellen, a chap of the crypto advocacy radical Coin Center, sued Attorney General Merrick Garland to person his planned merchandise of non-custodial bundle declared ineligible and to artifact the DOJ from utilizing wealth transmitting laws to prosecute him.
Lewellen said the DOJ “has begun criminally prosecuting radical for publishing akin cryptocurrency software,” which helium claims extended the mentation of money-transmitting laws “beyond what the Constitution allows.”
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English (US) ·