Following the arrest of the Samourai Wallet developer, several other Bitcoin-mixing operations have seen the writing on the wall and are leaving the United States for more cryptocurrency-friendly regions.
In April, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York indicted Samurai Wallet founders Kionne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill on charges of operating a “cryptocurrency mixer” that involved more than $2 billion in illegal transactions. announced that it has facilitated more than $100 million in funding. Laundering transactions with illegal dark web marketplaces.
Following the closure of Samourai Wallet, ZKSnacks, the developer of Wasabi Wallet, announced a pre-emptive shutdown of its mixing service, banning US customers from using the service.
“Wasabi's website and API will be inaccessible from the United States effective immediately,” a Wasabi Wallet representative said. Decryption. “ZkSNACKs will discontinue coinjoin services for all users at the end of May.”
Image: Notice that U.S. customers see on the Wasabi Wallet website.
Hardware wallet Trezor followed suit on May 2nd, announcing that it would also be discontinuing its Mixer service.
“We deeply respect the privacy of our users and it is with great regret that we must announce the retirement of the Coinjoin feature in Trezor Suite. [June 1] This is the latest as our partners will no longer offer this service,” Trezor wrote on Twitter.
As the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) leads other regulators and law enforcement agencies in its war on cryptocurrencies, Americans are increasingly being shut out.
The SEC has a long history of what many critics, including regulators within the SEC, refer to as “enforcement regulation.” The U.S. Department of Justice has indicted several virtual currency developers on money laundering charges, and also indicted the developer of a virtual currency coin mixer as an illegal money transmitter.
A coin mixer or “coinjoin” is a service that allows users to obfuscate the source and destination of transactions. Users send cryptocurrencies to the service. Cryptocurrencies are mixed with other cryptocurrencies before being relayed to the receiving address, hiding the connection between sender and recipient.
In February 2023, Sinbad Bitcoin Mixer was revealed to be a rebrand of Blender Bitcoin Mixer, which was previously shut down by federal regulators. By November, Sinbad was also taken offline as the website was seized by law enforcement.
Perhaps the best-known mixer, Tornado Cash, was released on August 8, 2022 after the U.S. Treasury added the Ethereum mixing service to the Specially Designated Nationals list, effectively banning American citizens from using the tool or trading at its addresses. It was closed in May.
Representatives for Trezor and Samourai Wallet did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Decryption.
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.
