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Live with @Keonne of @SamouraiWallet #pardonsamourai Code is Speech!
Recorded: Dec. 16, 2025 Duration: 1:10:09Space Recording
Short Summary
In a compelling discussion, Kioni from Samurai Wallet shares insights on the launch of their privacy-focused Bitcoin wallet, the challenges faced due to regulatory pressures, and the need for a supportive environment for crypto developers. The conversation highlights the importance of privacy in cryptocurrency, the impact of legal actions on innovation, and a call to action for community support to secure pardons for unjustly prosecuted developers.
Full Transcription
The Thank you. Music I'm going to go ahead and get started.
I know it's incredibly busy for everyone.
So thank you so much to Jesse for being here.
Austin from Altcoin Daily and, of course, our speaker, Kioni from Samurai Wallet for
giving us your time.
And hopefully I can be of service.
Hopefully this reaches as many people as possible, considering the unfortunate circumstances.
And Kioni, I'm very, very sorry to say that it's unfortunate I'm actually seeing your face
because I remember every single time that we've talked before or I had you on my channel
to discuss Samurai Wallet,
you're always anonymous. And being able to be semi-anonymous in Bitcoin and crypto is incredibly
important. The reason why we Bitcoin, the reason why we crypto is so not only we can control our
own assets, power to the people, but more importantly, to remain semi-anonymous and to
be able to maintain that privacy. I'm a big believer
in privacy. I'm a big believer in people deciding who they want to let in when it suits their needs.
I have a young daughter and it's important for me to maintain privacy for her and to myself.
And I just wanted to personally thank you for creating Samurai Wallet and giving people a choice to maintain being anonymous to an extent.
And yeah, let's go ahead and get into it.
For those of you that don't know, Keone and Bill, they're currently being.
And again, you guys, there's no legal advice, none of that stuff.
It's just this is the words that I'm saying are my opinion.
So there's that.
But again, what's happening with Samurai Wallet, the developers, um, is just completely
unjust in my personal opinion.
And I think that code should be treated as speech.
I think it is speech and it should be protected under the first amendment.
And if you don't know what Samurai Wallet does, it is a, um, was a tool that people
can use to remain private, remain private, um, while transacting with Bitcoin, because
again, private privacy does matter. And as things
are starting to change, as we progress in the industry, banks and big traditional financial
entities are allowed to remain private, but the actual people are not. And Samurai Wallet essentially
solved an issue for many people. So Keone, if you want to talk a little bit about yourself to the
audience so they know what's kind of going on in your own words.
And then we'll get into some of the other things that have come up recently.
Absolutely. Thank you, Wendy, for having me on.
And yeah, I was going to say something kind of similar to you in that it's kind of weird, you know, being on here with you as kioni as opposed to samurai wallet i
think i was on your show two or three times uh you had you had us on pretty early your supporter
samurai wallet very early on and um it was always anonymous like you said uh so this whole this whole
week or last two weeks has been pretty surreal for me doing all of these recordings and podcasts as me.
But, you know, it was an important thing to do to get the word out and get people informed.
So yeah, just a brief summary.
I'm sure many people have already heard this, so I won't go into great depth unless you
ask me to. But in 2015, I built with my partner Bill Samurai Wallet.
Samurai Wallet was a non-custodial open source Bitcoin wallet with several novel features
that were intended to increase the privacy that a person gets or a user gets when they
transact with Bitcoin.
As we all probably know, the Bitcoin ledger is totally transparent and pseudonymous, meaning
I can look at every transaction that has ever occurred on Bitcoin in real time. In the olden days, before all the new users who came in, in the olden days,
this pseudo-anonymous kind of setup worked great. I could see addresses and amounts,
but I didn't know who those addresses and amounts belonged to. I didn't know their
identity. As more people entered the space, as it became more mature, you started having these entities like exchanges and other third parties that were required by law to collect personal identifiable information, also known as KYC, know your customer.
So, for example, you buy Bitcoin on Coinbase and they know who you are.
They know your government ID.
They have your social security number. They're reporting everything as they're required to do
by law. This is dangerous to the pseudo anonymous aspect of Bitcoin because it's tying a real life
identity to a Bitcoin address. And using pretty simple techniques techniques you're able to follow the
activity of that Bitcoin address even if it moves to another address with
reasonable certainty. So the chain becomes less of a pseudo anonymous
chain and more of a permissioned and identified chain and Samurai Wallet was
designed to break that identified aspect of things.
So you could use Samurai Wallet and let's say you withdrew from Coinbase to your wallet,
but you don't really want Coinbase to know everything that you're doing after you've got the Bitcoin from them.
And why should they? It's none of their business, right?
Like when you go to an ATM from your bank and take out a
hundred dollars, the bank doesn't know what you're doing with that hundred dollars of cash. And it's
none of their business what you're doing with it. So Samurai Wallet had tools, a coin join tool,
again, non-custodial that would allow you to obtain that same basic level of transactional
privacy like you would get from using an ATM and then withdrawing cash.
We operated Samurai Wallet openly for 10 years.
It was available on the Google Play Store.
It was available on other app stores as well.
And there was no problem.
We thought what we were doing was in the bounds of the law.
The regulator for money transmission and illicit finance said very clearly, you know,
as long as you don't take custody, you're not crossing the line. And we never took custody,
so we never thought we were crossing the line. On April 24th, 2024, everything changed. I was
raided by the FBI at five in the morning, 40 or 50 armed agents swarmed my house.
They brought with them drones and armored vehicle, full SWAT, you know, guns and everything,
and arrested me.
And I learned they did the same thing to my partner, Bill, in Portugal, raided him and
arrested him.
And we were charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering
and conspiracy to operate a money service business without a license.
The maximum penalty for both of these crimes was 25 years in federal prison.
After fighting the case for over a year, about a year and six months, I would say,
we eventually took a deal that got rid of
the money laundering charge if we would plead guilty to the unlicensed money transmission charge.
Now, there's various reasons why that's laughable. The primary reason, which if you'll allow me to,
Wendy. No, please. This is your stage. I want you to say what you need to say. I know my audience is a little bit different than the Bitcoin community. And that's okay, because at the end of the day, we're all here because we want to improve the life of our families and our communities legally and ethically.
that we do that is with clear guidance or clear rules. And it was very unfortunate what happened
under previous administrations that there was not clear guidance. Because again, people are given,
told what they can and can't do. Most people, especially builders, are going to abide by that.
So this is your stage. Please, I want you to please use it as you need to.
Sure. Yeah, thank you.
And in fact, I will disagree with you slightly.
I think in this case, there actually was clear guidance.
The guidance was crystal clear.
So in 2013, the regulator in charge of money transmission and illicit finance is called
FinCEN, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
And FinCEN had really common sense and clear regulatory guidance.
If you take custody of a customer's funds and take control of a customer's funds,
you are a money transmitter, right?
So Coinbase, AnyExchange, Western Union, PayPal,
they all take custody of their clients funds of their
users funds they are money transmitters then FinCEN repeated again in 2019 if
you take custody of customers funds you are a money transmitter you need to get
a license if you are and this is the term they used an anonymity service
provider or an anonymity software provider, such as coin mixing or coin tumbling,
and you do not take custody of a customer's funds, you are not a money transmitter. It is
that clear in the FinCEN guidance. So as builders of quote unquote anonymity software, we read this
and said, this is crystal clear. And we are not
falling over the line into money transmission because we never take custody. Samurai Wallet
wasn't like the old school custodial mixer where the user sends their Bitcoin out to the mixer,
mixer, and then the mixer sends the Bitcoin back to them. That's not how it worked in Samurai.
and then the mixer sends the Bitcoin back to them. That's not how it worked in Samurai.
In Samurai, the user never sent their Bitcoin anywhere other than an address that was already
in their wallet that they controlled. So at no point was the user giving up custody and control
to any other party. So we thought that the guidance was crystal clear and that the regulator was crystal clear and we felt safe in building the tool that we built.
And it just so happens that we find out during the course of fighting this case, a year into fighting this case, we find out that the government actually talked to FinCEN before they brought the indictment against us. The government actually went to FinCEN and asked them, excuse me, and asked them, they said, do you think Samurai Wallet is a money
transmitter? And FinCEN told them, this is in an email, black and white, told them, no,
they wouldn't be considered a money transmitter because they don't take custody of anyone's funds.
The government had this information six months before indictment. They indicted us anyway, one of the charges being unlicensed money transmission,
even though the regulator in charge of issuing those licenses just told them that we wouldn't
qualify for a license because we didn't take custody. That was a bombshell. Not only that,
they hid that information for us from over a year, for over a year. That was a bombshell. Not only that, they hid that information for us from over a year for over a year.
That was exculpatory information that they were required by law to share with us and they didn't do it.
So when we found this out, it was obviously a pretty big deal.
We wrote a motion. We wrote a letter to the judge and said, judge, this is a big deal. We want more information as to why this happened, who decided not to share this with us and what other things
that they talk about. And before the judge could decide this motion, for some reason, we don't know
why still to this day, the judge changed. We had a new judge. And when we went to sit before the
new judge, the new judge denied the motion outright and didn't allow us any argument, which was shocking.
You know, the it wasn't even up for debate that they didn't that they hid this information.
The government admitted they hid the information.
So it was very odd that the judge just denied our motion without any argument from either side and with no written or verbal opinion.
So and there was other motions that this judge, this new judge denied that basically led me and
Bill to kind of say, oh, this is this isn't going to be a a like a fair trial that we can actually
win. They're going to railroad us and put us away for 25 years
if they're not even going to read our motions. So that's when we took the deal. The deal,
I was sentenced for unlicensed money transmission, even though the regulator said we didn't need a
license. And I was sentenced to five years in federal prison. Bill was sentenced to four years in federal prison. We had to forfeit $6.4 million and we have to pay a fine of $250,000 each. I report to FPC Morgantown in four days, December 19th.
So it's very apparent that there was a massive justice that occurred. Also, everyone, December 19th is in four days, just like he said.
There is a petition, which I went ahead and put it underneath the space. There's a lot of accounts that are sharing the petition. If you can please interact with it, please sign it, please share it.
the petition, if you can please interact with it, please sign it, please share it. That is
incredibly important because we'd like to get as many people to keep eyes on this and to understand
what's happening. Because again, we're in this stage of where we're getting regulation coming
into the markets and that's great, fine, fantastic. But at the same time, we do have a voice and,
you know, in America, we are able to respectfully ask our public servants
for certain things. And we don't want something like this to happen again. Not only do we want
Keone and Bill to be pardoned, because what they did was not wrong. They went an extra step.
They, you know, they did what they were supposed to do. They didn't custody. They didn't touch
anybody's money. They didn't act as a money transmitter. But we need to work towards not only getting them pardoned, but also making sure this
does not happen again in America, because this is not what was promised by President Trump. Trump
ran on the promise of, you know, that they were going to go back and they were going to, you know,
remove the predatory practice. And again, these are my words, and this represents my feelings only,
that they were going to go back and they were going to remove all the predatory practices that were under that were
created under the Biden era towards crypto. And they, in my personal opinion, is the SEC unjustly
went after, you know, the ripples and the Coinbase and, you know, many, many, many good actors.
So it's very, very, very crucial that we get we get not only good regulation, but we also protect
our developers, because if we don't have
active developers that are working in the industry to continue to create, to innovate, and to build,
then we don't have crypto, then we don't have Bitcoin to an extent. It's not going to function
the way that it needs to, because you need to have continuous development happening.
And again, we're talking about two individuals that did the right thing, that went by what guidance was given.
And unfortunately, this is the current outcome.
So moving forward in the conversation, if you guys can go ahead and deal with the petition, sign it, open it, share it, whatnot.
If you don't want to share my post, that's totally fine.
But please, there's multiple different people in the industry that are posted it. Please do so. We want to get Trump to acknowledge what's going on, which he seems that he did. I read one of the comments down below, and it was blind gray squirrel, and they said, shout out to Decrypt Media for asking Trump about the case during the q a session so that that just came out today correct yeah like let's let's talk about
that because that's that's a big deal uh that's a real big deal uh so like one of the issues that
we've had is getting the president's attention right everyone is competing for the president's
attention and if you, you know,
have a lot of money or a lot of power, it's a little bit easier to get the president's attention.
Well, we don't have either a lot of money or a lot of power. We are just two open source developers
who, in fact, not only don't have a lot of money, have no money, right? This whole process has
completely bankrupted us. So I've always said that if we could get this in front of the president to his attention,
there's good chance that we would get a pardon for various reasons. But most importantly,
the president understands lawfare. He has been the subject of DOJ investigations and prosecution.
the subject of DOJ investigations and prosecution,
to some would say justly, to me probably would say unjustly.
To him, definitely would say unjustly.
So he understands what a DOJ investigation is like
from a DOJ that is going after you.
So getting the attention was kind of the key.
And that's what the point of the petition is.
That's what the point of all of the people talking about it on Twitter. That's the point of me doing
all these press interviews over the last couple weeks. One of the interviews I did was a text
interview for Decrypt. I think it was about a week and a half ago, maybe two weeks with a gentleman named
Sander Lutz. And we were just, we had a great conversation and he was writing a article,
not specifically about Samurai Wallet, but he was going to tie in our case as to what was going on.
So this was a couple of weeks ago and I had kind of forgot about it. The article came out earlier today, and it was very good. I recommend people read it. But Sander, I didn't realize this at the time, happens to be a White House correspondent for Decrypt Media. And he had the opportunity today to ask a question of the president.
he took his question and asked about our case and asked the president if he knew about the samurai
wallet case and if he would issue a pardon, if that was a possibility or consideration.
Now, I've seen a lot of interviews and Q&As with the president. And if he doesn't want to answer
something or something is not interesting to him, he generally has no problem shutting it down,
saying, I don't know about that
next question, or I don't know what you're talking about next question. He spent about 37 seconds or
40 seconds answering Mr. Lutz. And he said, well, you know, typical Trump fashion. Yeah, I've heard
about that. And, you know, went back and forth with Mr. Lutz asking, Oh, do you think you should
they should have a pardon? It sounds like you do. And then ended it with saying, well, I don't really know anything
about it, but I'm going to refer the case to Pam Bondi, who's the attorney general. And,
you know, to many people who aren't familiar with the president, that doesn't mean anything.
But to us, that's huge because now it's on the president's radar. He told the attorney
general to look into it. People are looking into it now. We have the attention of the president.
This is a major coup for just two individual guys. We're not CZ. We're not anyone. Now we're
on the president's radar. So I think our chances are significantly better for a pardon than they ever have been.
And the petition signatures matter so tremendously. I was on a space a couple of maybe a week ago and it was a, you know, an impromptu kind of thing.
And in the middle of the space I was on, Ross Ulbricht joins. And this is the first time Ross Ulbricht of the Silk Road has ever done a space.
And he joined up and we had like a one-on-one conversation for about 10 minutes.
And one of the things he said was how important the signatures were on his petition, that they really did help, that they were essential.
So I really ask people, don't give up right now. If you haven't
read the petition and you haven't signed the petition, please sign it. The more signatures
we have, the better. It puts us into a more powerful position when asking the president
of the United States or people in his administration to look at us as a voting block and do the right thing for crypto. So if you go
to billandkeone.org, B-I-L-L-A-N-D-K-E-O-N-N-E.org and click sign the petition, it will take you to
change.org. Sign the petition, please, and share it out. It's incredibly important.
No, I definitely agree. And again, I have I have put it underneath the space that I
have and it's it's reposted so people can sign that and also share it again. You guys, this is
this might not impair you might not think that this impacts you directly, but it does. It impacts
all of us, even though crypto and Bitcoin is starting to go a lot more mainstream. We're
seeing the institutional adoption come in. We wouldn't be where we are today without people like Keone and Bill and a lot of the early guys in Bitcoin, guys and gals
in Bitcoin. They've done a significant amount to advance the space. They've built things that
were not possible before. And again, privacy is incredibly important. As we move into this
brand new era of Bitcoin and crypto, with the institutions coming in, your privacy is going to
be even more important than it ever was before. And, you know, like Keone was talking about,
you know, kind of being pseudo anonymous, looking at the Bitcoin ledger, like you can see addresses,
you can see amounts. But again, like me as a mom or just me as a parent in general,
I don't want people to be able to track where I go and what I do. That's always
a big thing for me, especially just going to like a grocery store and whatnot that causes a lot of
issues. And knowing that there are people out there that could potentially have access to privacy and
developers and people that are building in the space by Keone and Bill not being able to create
out of fear anymore. That's a big deal. And it's something that needs to be discussed. And I'm so glad that Ross did join the space and that he did, you know, bring awareness
and attention to it because he was another one that was unjustly attacked for creating and not
doing anything wrong. And I think it's important that everybody understand that they can come for
anybody whenever they decide to. Like if you listen to the beginning of the space
and you heard a lot of the details
that the Samurai Wallet developers,
that they did extra steps.
They made sure that they weren't practicing custody.
They weren't doing any of those things
and they still essentially got unjustly targeted.
It could happen to anybody.
And at the end of the day,
we want this happy medium with institutions and with retail.
We're not going to be able to have that if they continue to unjustly go after good actors
in the space.
There's a lot of bad things that do happen, unfortunately, in every single industry, but
we cannot allow people to be unjustly targeted and attacked.
And I personally think, in know, in Trump fashion,
him actually saying, yeah, I've heard about the case, you know, we'll refer it. To me,
that's extremely positive. And it's very good because he kind of did the same thing with Ross.
And he made a lot of promises before he was elected. And those promises do need to be kept.
You guys did not break the law. You guys did not do anything wrong. You simply built a tool for other people to use to to maintain safety and to maintain privacy.
Innocent people that just want a little bit of extra go through an extra step and remain private.
And I think that that's not only admirable, but no one should be targeted for that, in my opinion.
Yeah, I mean, I agree completely. And I think the whole point of the prosecution of us, Samurai Wallet, and of Tornado Cash on Ethereum by the Biden administration, who was openly anti-crypto.
We have to remember that. They weren't hiding it. They were explicitly and openly anti-crypto.
crypto. It was to introduce a chilling effect into this country. They didn't want people like
It was to introduce a chilling effect into this country.
Roman Storm and they didn't want people like me and Bill building this type of tool for people.
They don't think people should have any privacy in their transactions, whether it's crypto or in
the fiat space. They want to see everything you're doing and they feel like they have the right to
see every single thing you're doing. And that's never they have the right to see every single thing you're
doing. And that's never been the case in this country. That's never been the case. So they
go after the people and the tools that are gaining traction, that have a lot of users,
that are going to make the biggest impact. They go after it, so they introduce a chilling effect
and a warning to other builders and developers. Your software is not welcome in
this country. You're not welcome here. And the president, President Trump, campaigned on ending
that war on crypto and not only ending the war on crypto, but making the United States the capital
of crypto, I think is what he said. And I think he's been doing a good job. We haven't had the
same level or any of these types
of prosecutions under Trump's Department of Justice. So I think he is making good on that
promise. And I think his appointments are making good on that promise. The issue lies in the fact
that there are many, many employees of the Department of Justice who weren't appointed by the president, who are, you know, unelected, unappointed bureaucrats that hang around from administration to administration.
And they're quite happy to frustrate the will of the president. And they're quite happy to frustrate, you know, his goals, right? So the deputy attorney general writes a memo, Todd Blanche writes a memo
saying, hey, we're not prosecuting software developers for the acts of, you know, their
end users who might do something wrong. We're going to go after the end users. We're going to
go after the actual criminals, not the software developers. That's a wonderful change in policy
for DOJ. And so far, they haven't brought any new prosecutions.
Unfortunately for myself and Bill and for Roman Storm, the prosecutions that were brought under
under Biden and being prosecuted by these lower level line prosecutors who have no loyalty to
the president and were all on board with the war in crypto,
they kept going. So it's a tough thing. I've said it before. When Trump was talking about the swamp in his first term, that's who he's talking about. He's not talking about the people
he appoints and the people who are working with him and trying to bring his will about. He's
talking about the unelected unappointed uh permanent
class of employees who are quite happy to try to frustrate what uh he's trying to do and because
they think that they know better and they don't like what the president's doing and they're not
going to listen to him and they're you know uh and he has a problem with with these people and it
needs to be solved especially within the southern district of new york um where where i was prosecuted where bill was prosecuted roman
storm being prosecuted uh so i think he's he's on the right track and it's not something that can
just be changed overnight but now for for bill and myself it is something that can be changed overnight. He has the power to undo what has been unjustly done.
And it goes back to my earlier point where he understands intimately the power of a weaponized
Department of Justice. If he looks at the details of our case, the hidden evidence, the complete fabrication of what we've said, the lack of context about our tweets,
you know, and, you know, and messages. He will see something, you know, very familiar,
because they did it to him. And I think that gives us a very good shot. Now that he knows about it,
gives us a very good shot. Now that he knows about it, he'll see it and hopefully do the right thing
and restore some justice. So I think it's a good thing. And I think he's doing a good job
on his promise to end the war on crypto. But these things kind of move slow.
of move slow. One thing I learned is that the wheels of justice definitely move slow. You know,
One thing I learned is that the wheels of justice definitely move slow.
we were dealing with this since April 2024. We didn't ever even got to a trial. And it was about
a year and a half before a deal was even offered that we ended up taking and I think we did the
right thing in taking it. But everything in the DOJ moves very slow. I definitely agree with you that, you know, things do move slow, especially when it comes to legislation.
That's something that we are seeing happen right now with, you know, with the Genius Act and with the Clarity Act and whatnot.
I am very thankful that we do have a pro-crypto administration and that we are starting to see a little bit more bipartisan support.
but more bipartisan support. And again, those of you that are listening that are not Trump fans,
you don't have to be a Trump fan to see what's happening currently to these two innocent men
that it's unjust. And when we're talking about crypto, we're talking about Bitcoin.
Bitcoin and crypto, they're for the people, by the people. They're supposed to be vehicles,
they're supposed to be tools that anybody, especially doesn't matter where your social
background, your wealth background, what your background is, everybody gets an equal playing field.
And however, you know, however you decide to use crypto is your personal choice.
No one is forcing you. And that's exactly what the developers did with Samurai Wallet is they created a tool for I mean, when I first had you guys on, I think the first time I had you guys on is might have been 2018 or 2019.
Yeah. Yeah. That was the first one or super,
super early on. We had a mutual friend. They are no longer on X. I won't say who it is,
but a mutual friend that's early on in Bitcoin since the very beginning. And from my understanding,
like when I first talked to you guys, even back then, you guys created a really, really great tool for people that wanted to use Bitcoin, just average, average anybody, just essentially underdogs that wanted to use Bitcoin as and also have a little bit of extra layer of privacy on.
And to me, that's just honest, taxpaying Americans that, you know, like Bitcoin.
They thought it was great.
They thought it was a great tool.
Like me personally, I not only do I like to use it as money, but you know, for financial freedom, but also as a form
of silent protest against whatever's currently happening in the world. And I think most people
can agree, can agree to that. But I pay my crypto taxes, I pay my Bitcoin taxes, I report based off
of what, you know, regardless if I'm using something for privacy or not, I'm still going
to report the way I need to, I just would prefer to have a little bit of extra layer of privacy just for my own,
my own mind. Again, I'm a parent and that's incredibly important to me and different people
have different reasons, but I don't think in any way, shape or form you or Bill created Samurai
Wallet for people to do, to use for bad, just the same way that Ross created Silk Road, not for people to do bad.
And same with Roman and Tornado Cash. And I'm a supporter of his as well. I don't think he did
anything wrong. I don't think any of you did anything wrong. Unfortunately, there's bad people
in every single industry in the world. That's not going to change. We see bad people in finance and
in the food industry and the beauty industry, just because somebody creates something and somebody does a separate entity decides to do something bad with it.
It's not, it shouldn't, the blame should not fall on the creator. And I am hoping that Trump will,
will make the right choice. I think that he will. And again, you guys, you don't have to be a fan
of Trump to, to, to, to see what's actually happening here. Um, you could have not voted,
you could have not voted for him
and still support, you know, the petition to pardon Keone and Bill. And that's incredibly
important is because if we allow for a, you know, we have freedom of speech in America,
and I do believe that code is speech, and I believe it should be protected by the First
Amendment, and people that are creating should not get in trouble for doing so. And again, like if there's an issue, like if it if there's some sort of entity, legal entity or whatnot,
that has a problem with what you guys are building, it would have been nice to be like, hey, you can't do this.
And again, with the previous SEC, you didn't have it.
And I know that, you know, we're talking SEC is a little bit different than the DOJ.
The SEC is a little bit different than the DOJ, but my point is that during the Biden administration, projects like Coinbase or Ripple or whomever wanted to go in and register and do essentially follow the law, and they were not able to.
They were not allowed to register.
They were not allowed really any communication with a lot of the public servants, and that's not okay.
And this is why it's so important, not only for both of your freedom, because neither of you have done anything wrong. You
don't, didn't have a malicious intent, but it's setting a negative precedent for anybody to build
in America. Because what happens if someone just builds something very, very simple, not even not
how that has nothing to do with privacy, but they're unjustly targeted. So that's just kind
of my concern. Um, what's good is the future of America, and we can't allow
that to happen. We're allowed to use our voices, and we're allowed to, you know, discuss these
things and let them be known. So to me, that's incredibly, incredibly, incredibly important.
Yeah, absolutely. Did you want to chime in on any any of my thoughts?
Yeah, no, I think you're I think you're absolutely right. This prosecution, Roman
Storm's prosecution, it really opens the door. I mean, the government came at this with a
completely novel theory that essentially says software developers, software providers are
actually financial institutions, right? And no one had ever said or thought that Samurai Wallet
was a financial institution, right? How can we be a financial or thought that Samurai Wallet was a financial
institution, right? How can we be a financial institution? We don't take anyone's money.
We're software, pure and simple. They came at this with the, you know, saying we're a financial
institution. And as a financial institution, we're required by law, Bank Secrecy Act, to take
anti-money laundering and KYC information.
We didn't do that.
And because we didn't do that, we were guilty, according to the government, of facilitating
money laundering, or at least conspiring to do that.
So the whole deck of cards is on a very shaky foundation that all comes down to them believing that non-custodial software is akin to a bank,
is akin to PayPal or Western union, a financial institution.
And it really, it makes no sense.
And the fact that they can get away with these completely novel theories and go
as far as they did in this case, ultimately to a conclusion that
ends with us in prison, is shocking and scary, right? The whole point that Americans like to
believe about the justice system and about the prosecutor's office is that they are searching for truth, right? We want to
prosecute criminals and we want to get the right guy and put the right guy away. But unfortunately,
after going toe to toe with the DOJ for almost two years now, I know that to be a complete
and utter farce. That's not how it goes. The DOJ gets you in their sights. You're doing something that
they don't like, whether it be legal or not. They don't like it. And they're going to find a way
to take you out. And that's what they did here. They found a way to take out a software application
that they didn't like. They didn't like the fact that we figured out a way to do this extremely good privacy technique
akin to coin mixing, which traditional coin mixing, like I said earlier, is I send my
Bitcoin out to someone and they send it back to me.
That is money transmission.
I sent it out.
It's gone.
It's out of my control and someone else's control.
And that other person then sends it back to me.
They've transmitted money.
We figured out a
way to do that without transmitting money through pure software through pure mathematics and they
hated that we did that they hated that we skirted around them and unfortunately back you know in
2018 or 19 when we created this we thought that there was a level playing field we thought if we played
by the rules their rules that they created we would be okay everyone did wasn't just us our
lawyers did uh the industry the wider industry did and the regulator did fincen they saw it the same
way unfortunately doj with the power of a presidential administration who declared war on crypto, had a whole different
idea, and they came after us, came after others with these crazy novel theories that should
worry people, that should worry you and should worry good Americans who are not criminals.
The majority of people who use Samurai Wallet were not criminals.
That's by the DOJ's own numbers. They said $2 billion worth of cryptocurrency was sent through
Samurai Wallet. $2 billion. Of that $2 billion, $187 million was, according to the DOJ, illicit. I don't know if it was or not.
We'll just assume that they're telling the truth that $187 million was illicit.
So that number, it's like 10%, less than 10%.
That's what I was just going to say.
It's better than cash.
Well, again, there's incredibly problematic things that you just, not on your side, but
that you just that not not on your side, but that you just said, like, we all know that cash, it's incredibly hard to track.
And it's almost impossible to track. And there's a lot of illicit activity that goes on with that.
We know that we know that a particular bank was also, you know, got got a slap on the wrist for allowing certain transactions and certain exchange of money to
happen for a very terrible person. But that's okay. But now they're going after someone or
an entity, they're going after you and Bill for hiring attorneys, for doing your due diligence,
for acting as law-abiding citizens or just law-abiding human beings for folks to use in
America. And they're
they're essentially coming after you because they decided, you know what, we don't want people to
have privacy. We want to make an example so that we can continue to stop innovation, that we can
destroy livelihoods. And instead of just saying, you know what, this is probably you guys need to
shut this down. This is wrong. They unjustly went after you. And my big concern that we're going to see is that any time
there is a court case that there's a decision made in court case. And again, you guys, I'm not
an attorney. I do know a little bit about the law. I've read books and I've done due diligence on
various personal things myself. But I do know that case law does matter. And anytime that there is a
decision based off of a court case that can be used as evident, or I don't necessarily want to
say evidence, but it can be used by attorneys to build cases in other aspects. So again, we're
talking about, we're talking about two men, two innocent men that hired attorneys that wanted to
build something really, really great, that were
advised, hey, there's no issue with this because you're not custodying any money.
But then all of a sudden, a couple of years later, they got hit by the DOJ, unfortunately.
And now we're, and again, if this, if you both do end up, if Trump doesn't, President
Trump does not pardon either of you, then this could
lead to negative precedent being set for future people, for people that are building in the U.S.
And again, we're very lucky and very blessed that we do have a pro-crypto president and pro-crypto
SEC and administration and whatnot. But if we don't respectfully demand the pardon now and
respectfully demand that this gets reversed, then this will set positive or excuse me, this will set negative precedent in the United States of America for anybody that wants to build.
I'm just I'm I'm just kind of spinning here a little bit because we're talking about privacy, which I personally believe is a basic human right.
If you're not doing anything illegal, you do have a privacy is a basic human right.
I don't want people knowing what I do inside my house.
You know, I deserve to have that privacy within my four walls and everybody else does.
But now my big concern is, is that if we don't use our voices, that anybody who wants to
build anything, regardless if they've done their due diligence, regardless if they've
hired attorneys, regardless if they've done any anything that they're supposed to do the
right way, that they're going to be unjustly attacked.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And there's a couple of things I want to say to this.
So first, you brought up a very important point. And that point is no one had ever contacted us
from the United States government, the DOJ, the FBI, no one, within the 10 years that we were
operating to either ask for information about a criminal that
was using the service or say, hey, we see someone using your service that's a criminal.
Nothing, ever. Second, before raiding us, I had told my lawyer that be on the lookout. If any
agency gets in touch with you, let me know and we can deal with it.
They didn't need to raid us. They didn't need to do a full-blown SWAT raid with guns on the
laser sights on me and my wife, drones and armored vehicles. All they had to do was contact our
attorney who was public and known and say, hey, we think your client's breaking the law, have him surrender to us,
and we would have gone, right? Like the whole thing was totally unnecessary. And then the second thing I would like to mention, because you discussed precedent, the DOJ doesn't care.
They don't care about precedent. This action that they took in arresting Bill and me was unprecedented. For a software to be labeled
as a financial institution, for non-custodial software to be labeled as a financial institution,
totally unprecedented. So they don't need precedent. They will do whatever they want.
Now, in the courts, I also used to think that precedents mattered. And in our, I didn't bring this up earlier,
but I'll bring it up now since, since it was mentioned in our motion to dismiss, uh, which is
one of the most important motions that you make pre-trial before you get to a jury. And in the
motion to dismiss, you have to assume that everything that the government has said about
you and their indictment is a hundred percent true. You just have to assume that.
And even if all of that stuff was 100% true, here's the legal reason why the judge should
get rid of this.
It doesn't hold up to a matter of law.
And we put together a phenomenal motion to dismiss.
And we cited Supreme Court precedents, precedents that comes from the highest court in the land.
1940, a sugar distributor was taken down on a conspiracy charge, just like we were,
for selling sugar to a bootlegger who was going to make alcohol, which was federally illegal at
the time, right? This is during prohibition. And the government says, you sold sugar to a
bootlegger and you knew that he was sugar to a bootlegger
and you knew that he was going to create alcohol.
Therefore, you're a part of this conspiracy.
The Supreme Court said absolutely not.
You have to be a part of the conspiracy.
You have to actually be a part of the crime.
You can't just know about the crime.
You actually have to be involved in it.
You have to do the crime.
And we found another one 1990s a grow light
Manufacturer got charged with a conspiracy charge for selling his grow lights that you use for tomatoes and stuff to a a known marijuana
Cultivator and this guy even advertised his grow lights in high times magazine, right?
Which is a magazine all about for marijuana enthusiasts.
And the guy who sold the grow lights also even joked.
He said, I don't even want to know what you're doing
with these grow lights to the marijuana grower.
Government came down on him on a conspiracy charge.
He got convicted at jury trial and then overturned on appeal
because again, the court said,
you have to actually be a part of the crime, not just know about it.
So we had wonderful Supreme Court precedents in our motion to dismiss.
And when we went to argue our motion to dismiss, the court wouldn't even hear our arguments.
The judge didn't want to hear our arguments.
She just denied the motion and then didn't even write an opinion as to why
she's denying it. Didn't even say a verbal opinion as to why she's denying it. She just denied it.
And that should tell you what the courts actually think about precedence. They don't care.
They don't care. They want you. They're going to get you. So again, unless you've gone toe to toe
with the courts and the Justice Department, you don't know this stuff.
You still think it's like what you see on TV and that the truth matters.
But the jury never even hears the truth.
Right. The jury hears what the judge wants them to hear.
And that's just the unfortunate reality of our legal system.
So the precedence is supposed to matter, but it really doesn't.
And the DOJ will do whatever they want, whenever they want.
If you're in their sight, they're going to take you down no matter what.
And that's unfortunately what happened to Bill and I.
And that's why at this point, the only person who can do something about it is the president of the United States,
do something about it is the president of the United States, the executive who has the
power, constitutional power to grant pardons for reversing injustice.
That's the whole point of it.
And that's what we're asking him to do.
To me, it's absolutely wild that a lot of the laws, especially when we're talking about
crypto and Bitcoin, and this is something I talk about a lot of my show and I've just
been screaming from the top of my lungs.
It's like we have so many outdated laws
that the previous administration
essentially weaponized against innocent people,
people that just wanted to create really dope stuff
in the industry, that wanted to advance,
that wanted to pay their tax,
create successful businesses
so that they can earn an honest living, pay their taxes, hire people, you know, educate
and whatnot. That's what crypto is to me. Crypto and Bitcoin, that's what it is to me. And that's
what it's always been to me is a lot of really, really great, intelligent people. You know,
we might not always get along all the time and that's okay, the different communities.
But at the end of the day, we're all here to, you know, to educate. That's what, that's what a lot of the early grassroots stuff was. And a lot of the, a lot of the laws and the
way that a lot of people in the industry have been treated just because, you know, they're trying to,
you know, essentially create, build really great things to help people, to generally help people.
And I think that that was, that was yours and Bill's honest intention was just to create a tool
to help people achieve privacy and honest people achieve privacy.
People that wanted, you know, that were filing their taxes and reporting things and doing things the right way, but just wanted just valued their privacy.
And I think, again, I think everybody deserves deserves to have privacy if they're not doing anything wrong.
And if you're paying your filing your taxes and paying them to the best of your ability, then you should be able to maintain that privacy. And again, this to me, the samurai wallet case and
the tornado cash case and the Silk Road case, those are all incredibly important. And I know
that you did say that the president doesn't matter. And to me, that's absolutely horrific that
that not only did you guys build something really cool, but you guys did it with legal advice. You
guys hired attorneys, just two regular guys, two average Joes hired attorneys like,
hey, we want to build something really cool.
You put money into it.
You put your time into it.
You didn't build Samurai Wallet as a business to hurt anybody or to, you know, to foster
illicit activities.
But you did it as a way to, you know, as part of the American dream to create a really,
really great product for people that wanted to use it, that had the option to use it just to add an additional layer of privacy.
It is incredibly unfortunate that these types of things are continuing to happen, especially under the Trump administration.
I do feel confident that that that President Trump, I mean, he did acknowledge it and thank God for the gentleman over at Decrypt that that, you know, that that made his voice heard and his voice heard and used his words to advocate for you guys.
But I'm hoping that more and more people understand what's happening right now.
Because I do believe that crypto is getting vertically integrated into TradFi.
And that is what it is.
But at the same time, there is still room for Bitcoin to retain its original ethos.
there is still room for, you know, for Bitcoin to retain its original ethos.
And I think that Samurai Wallet aligns with that ethos immensely,
that people can use Bitcoin in any way they see fit,
just as long, you know, just as long as they're honest,
you know, paying their taxes and doing the right thing.
Yeah, censorship, resistance, permissionless money.
That was the whole point of Bitcoin.
No intermediaries, no third parties, self-custody.
These were the whole point of Bitcoin. That's why I got involved. That's why Bill got involved. And that's why we built Samurai Wallet.
I'm not a fan of crime. I don't like crime. I've been the victim of crime knows what a, you know, a sensation that is.
Does it not feel safe in your own home if you've been robbed or in your car if it's been stolen?
You know, these things are not good.
I don't like scammers.
I don't like scammers who prey on the elderly or, you know, who prey on the technically inept.
And that happens all the time.
The thing about our case is
the government never produced a criminal, right? They said, oh, you facilitated all this crime,
but they never actually produced a criminal. And never produced a conversation between me and Bill
and a criminal because we never, we never wanted them. It wasn't about crime. The vast majority of
people who use samurai wallet were legal were legal law-abiding citizens who
believe they have a right to privacy.
And they do have a right to privacy.
And the only way that they could take their right to privacy and flex their right to privacy
was by using software that we created.
And they had every right to do so, just like we had every right to build that
software. And I'm incredibly proud of the software we built, even to this day. I don't regret a
single line of code we wrote. I don't even regret a single joke tweet that the government took out
of context and claimed to be the conspiracy. I don't regret any of it. I think what we did
was build something consequential and important. And even though the government took us down
and is trying to put us away into prison for five and four years, our code still exists. It was all
open source. And someone almost immediately after the arrest forked our code and there's a new
version of it out. It's still running, you know. So they're not going to win in the sense that they're just going to make this go away.
This is not going to happen. They took me and Bill down, but our code lives on. And the desire
of the people for basic financial privacy will not go away, no matter how hard they try. The best thing they can do is maybe
dissuade innovators from building software in America. The innovators will go offshore. They'll
go do it somewhere else. And that's, I think, exactly what the president doesn't want to happen.
He wants innovation to happen here, where it should be happening. And so, again, I think our
chances are good. I think the president understands this. And he wants the crypto innovation happening in America. And if he
wants it to be happening in America, you need to stop prosecuting software developers. And you need
to pardon Bill and myself, you need to drop the prosecution against Roman Storm. It's really that
simple. I definitely agree with you. And I
think it's even more, I'm getting really agitated right now, just by the fact that not only did you
guys hire an attorney, you guys did, you did everything correctly, you didn't custody any
money. But the fact that they didn't even produce a single entity that was using samurai wallet for
bad, but continue to prosecute you, because if anything, if their claims that person X was using samurai wallet to facilitate an illicit transaction,
then go after that person. Prosecute that person. Exactly. Exactly. Go after the criminals. I want
the FBI to fight actual crime. I want them to shut down these pig butchering scammers, right, who steal
millions in crypto all the time. I want them to stop them. But they don't need to have a bird's
eye view into every law abiding citizen's bank account to stop them, right? We have certain
rights in this country. Sure, it would be a lot easier to stop crime if the government didn't have to get a warrant, didn't have to, you know, get a, yeah, get a warrant before they searched
your home or your vehicle or whatever, right? That would make it easier for them. But we have
certain rights in this country that put roadblocks up and the police and investigators and law
enforcement have to work within that system. And it's the same thing for financial privacy they should not just
get access to every single person's entire life to stop crime they need to actually do police work
and stop the crime and if they can see a criminal going in to samurai wallet into whirlpool or
whatever the they're using that's the start point of their investigation. They should know who that criminal
is and act on it. And there's plenty of techniques that law enforcement can employ to try to get them
on the other side. Criminals are not that smart, believe it or not. Like when you have a criminal
who is trying to launder a huge amount of money, they're not doing it slow and methodically.
They're going fast.
And it's easy to see on the blockchain. So when the government says you created this software to make it easier for criminals to hide, you know, their illegal proceeds. One, that's not
true. That's not why we created the software. We created the software because in 2015, there was
no other software like it. And we personally needed it. We had been living on Bitcoin since 2012 and spending Bitcoin to live.
And there was not an app or wallet that we felt was suitable for someone like us who was living on Bitcoin.
So that's why we created it.
We created it to give basic financial privacy to law-abiding citizens, not to create a haven for criminal money launderers. If we were
trying to create a haven for criminal money launderers, there's a lot easier ways to do it
than how we did it, right? We would have just created a centralized mixer and charged a boat
load of fees and wouldn't have any problem funding our defense because we would have got so rich
from doing that. But that's not what
happened. We charged very little fees, had no money for our defense, and took years and years
and years of development to create a tool that was non-custodial and secure. And we were successful
at it, too successful. That's why the DOJ came knocking on April 24th.
Well, it also sounds like, I mean, again, you could have gone to one of these countries or one of these places that allowed for a mixer to be created. That was essentially very easy for you
guys. Because again, you guys did take the extra steps. You hired an attorney, which attorney,
if you guys, to the audience that's listening, attorneys are not cheap. They're very, very,
very expensive, especially good attorneys, especially when you're dealing with in finance and whatnot.
They're incredibly expensive.
So you guys, instead of, and also too, you stayed in America.
You could have fled.
Like if you, like, I don't, it just, there's so many things that are incredibly upsetting.
Like you could have gone to another country that this was, that there would have been no question that anyone was going to go after you. You didn't need to hire
an attorney. You didn't need to have the low fees. You didn't need to set it up the way that it was
set up. Yeah, exactly. And that's what we would have done if we were, you know, trying to build
some sort of criminal Haven. Right. But instead what we did is methodically build this out,
hire attorneys, make sure we weren't crossing the line of custody.
And not only this, but what criminal enterprise engages with the regulator in charge of stopping criminal activity?
We spent resources engaging with FinCEN, who's the Financial crime enforcement network, when they were coming up with
new rules. And we said, oh, these rules are not good. You know, they're going to harm users.
We spent significant amounts of money putting together a letter highlighting the issues,
addressing the issues and engaging with the regulator. What criminal enterprise does that?
That doesn't make any sense. Why would a criminal
enterprise engage with the regulator in charge of cracking down on them? Right? So none of the
theories that the government put forward really hold water, really make any sense. But unfortunately,
that didn't matter. And it really is a tough challenge to fight, especially in the Southern District of
New York, especially with the type of judges and the type of prosecutors that are there.
Again, they set their sights on you, and they're going to take you down one way or the other,
The truth be damned. It doesn't matter. They're taking you out.
the truth be damned. It doesn't matter. They're taking you out.
The whole entire thing is it's unfortunate and it's upsetting to me just because you that is pro Bitcoin. That is. And hopefully President Trump does the right thing. Promises. There was a lot of promises
made. And I have always defended him as far as the promises he's made for Bitcoin and crypto.
I felt I mean, there's a lot of things that obviously, you know, nobody's perfect. But at
the end of the day, I feel like he's kept his word for Bitcoin and crypto. And I would like to see him continue to keep his word and pardon you both. Pardon Keone and Bill from Samurai Wallet and
Roman from Tornado Cash, just as they've done with Ross. I think that it's the right thing to do.
I think if they if he wants to keep his promise on creating innovation in America and making
America first again, then we need to allow for developers that are not doing anything
with malicious intent to continue to build, to continue to interact with law enforcement and with
the different regulatory bodies and, you know, do things the way that you all did. Because if we
don't, then it doesn't matter that he became president, doesn't matter all these promises
that he made, crypto is still DOA here, Bitcoin is still DOA here. Yeah, we have the institutions,
that's great, fine, fantastic, everybody's making, you know, certain people are making money. Good for them. But if the underdogs, people like you, Bill and Roman,
if you guys are not given a fair shot here and pardon, then everything is essentially done in
vain. Then we're not really like you can make as much people can continue to make money off of
Bitcoin. But that doesn't follow Bitcoin's ethos of being able to, to remain semi anonymous and to be able to, to, to own your ass and, or to use
Bitcoin as a silent protest, because to me, that's what it is. That's, that's, I've always been big
into punk rock and the ideology there. And that's kind of really what got me very excited when I,
when I actually pulled the trigger and I bought Bitcoin was that ideology. It's just a group of
people that want to have families or that want to have the best life possible, that are against
the predatory systems. And we were prayed against for a long time, you and Bill in particular,
a lot more than anyone else, along with Ross and Roman. But if we're not able to get you gentlemen
pardoned, then everything's pretty much in vain.
And it doesn't matter that we have the institutional adoption.
Money is great.
But if you're still seeing unjust, you're still seeing people's human rights being invaded, then it's all in vain, in my opinion, because code is law and it should be protected or a code of speech.
And it should be protected under the First Amendment, especially if you're if you're not using it in a hateful or illicit
manner. Yeah, yeah. And that's the thing. I mean, it's speech. How can it be illicit? It's just
speech. And the DOJ says, well, you can write it, but when you start letting people use it,
then it crosses the line. And that's complete nonsense, right? That's like saying you can write down your words,
but you better not speak them out loud.
You better not let anyone hear them.
It's absolutely absurd.
So code is speech, even if the DOJ disagrees.
It is.
And we have to, you know, demand that it be set at, like, you know, that it's not even a question
anymore, right? Because it was kind of settled in the 90s with Bernstein versus U.S., that CODA
speech, but then kind of skirted around in Tornado Cash, where Judge Falla said, no, not really, not if it's being used.
And this is, again, the issue of precedence that we talked about earlier, where the court can just
kind of disregard this stuff and make up its own mind. And then you have to go through this
lengthy appeal process, which is incredibly expensive and takes a lot of time. But we need it. And
Roman is going through that appeal process. He's going to the appeals court and hopefully will be
successful there. I think he has a pretty good shot of being successful there, to be honest with
you. So hopefully we see that come about. It's because it's incredibly important that you be able to not only write the code, but share the code and let people use the code.
Because just writing the code and it's sitting on a repository somewhere is not going to do the trick, right?
It's like, you know, spitting in the wind.
So, yes, you have the right to write the code and you have the right to share the code
and let people run the code.
And that's what we did.
We wrote the code and ran the code
and let people use it.
Well, before we end the space,
I would like to respectfully demand
that everybody here,
that you guys don't have to share this
if you don't want to,
but please at least share the petition or copy the link and share it yourself. Send it to your
family, send it to your friends. I don't care who you send it to. We need to, I want to say that
needs 7,500 signatures. Is that correct? We need as many as possible. Okay. Well,
you guys, please, please share this. Please get, put eyes on it Again, just make an original post, whatever you want to do,
but push this out. Because if we do not get Keone and Bill Pardon, then Bitcoin is essentially
DOA in America. And you can argue with me all you want about it. But Bitcoin is for the people,
by the people. And if we do not respectfully demand that our developers, our innocent developers, our law abiding developers are protected, then then what's the point of Bitcoin?
It's not for institutions. It's for anybody who wants to use it.
It was created for the people by the people, for the underdogs.
So, again, Keone, thank you so much for your time today. I am sending blessings and prayers and just wishes to you and your family and to Bill's family.
And again, you guys, please make sure to share.
You can share the space.
You can share the post.
You can share the petition.
But please, please sign the petition.
This is incredibly important.
Privacy matters.
And if you think that, oh, well, you know, this is not going to impact me, if you didn't listen to anything that Keone said in this space, the DOJ can go after whoever they
want to, when they want to. And they don't, it's just absolutely absurd. And I'm hoping,
I'm hoping that President Trump successfully pardons you both and then gets to Roman after
as well. So before we get going, would you like to say anything before we say goodbye?
No, I mean, I think we covered it. I think your closing comments were absolutely right.
You know, if Bitcoin just becomes some sort of institutionally captured network,
then it really is kind of pointless, right? If everything is custodied through BlackRock,
then we've really, you know,
failed the whole thing. It has failed. I don't think that's going to be the case. I think there's
enough demand for the reason that Bitcoin was created, censorship resistance, permissionless
money. And in order to have that censorship resistance, you need to have basic financial
privacy, right? We're just talking
the same type of privacy you get with cash, you should be able to get with cryptocurrency,
with Bitcoin or whatever cryptocurrency you want to use, right? Because you can't have censorship
resistance without privacy. They're one in the same thing. So I don't think it's going to go and become a completely captured network or anything
like that, but it takes work. And the whole point of this prosecution and others like it
are to dissuade people from doing that work. And I hope that when I come back out of prison,
if I don't get the pardon in five years, that that work has continued, that the vision for a peer-to-peer
electronic cash system that Satoshi envisioned becomes or continues to be a reality and comes
closer to that reality. So I hope that builders continue to build and don't get dissuaded
and chilled from these unjust prosecutions.
Do it anyway.
Build the tools and learn from the mistakes we made.
We thought that we were following the law,
and because of that, we were open with what we were doing.
Maybe you have to go underground, I guess.
But the tools need to be built.
The software needs to be built because the people demand it.
People need this stuff.
So thank you for your time and get letting me, you know, talk to your audience.
You will always have a spot on any of my social medias, as always.
You guys have always been friends of the channel.
I've always showcased kindness.
Just so you guys know a little bit about Keone's character.
When I was initially new in the space, a mutual friend of ours
connected us and I, you know, I wasn't, I'm still not very tech savvy and Keone offered to come on
my show and kind of let me ask the dumbest questions, help educate me, help educate my
audience. So that's just the type of person that he is. He's not a criminal. He didn't do anything
wrong. Neither did Bill. They just wanted to create something really good for the average
American, the average person, anybody who wanted to use it. That's all that they did. They created
code, which is speech, and it should be protected as such. So I just ask you to reshare this or
reshare the link. Please sign it, and let's get these guys pardoned, and let's make sure that
they are home for the holidays. So Keone, thank you so much. And we're going to be praying for you and Bill.
And again, Jesse, thank you for setting this up. And thank you guys. I'm going to end the space
and let's pull together and let's take care of our own in this community, because that's what
the early days of Bitcoin and crypto were about is, you know, you can hate each other as much
as you want and argue with each other. But at the end of the day, we need to have each other's back
when one of us is attacked because droogs don't run and sending you all love and light. We're out.
Insights
Project L
P
