Samourai Wallet Gives In With Guilty Pleas, But It Was All Their Risk

Samourai Wallet developers Keonne Rodrigeuz and William Hill both took plea deals, which dropped conspiracy to commit money laundering charges in exchange for guilty pleas to conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmission service. Shinobi argues that the pleas, while not creating formal case law, could be cited in other cases and may chill software development generally. He also argues that the pair alone bore the risk of up to 20 years in prison for the money laundering charge, so criticizing them for accepting the deals is unfair to those who bore no such risk.