Ross Ulbricht had his constitutional rights violated true enough, which prevented him putting on his defense by a corrupt federal judge, but he was still one of many administrators for an illegal dark website violating the law selling drugs among other things. Consequently, I think he was made an example of for illegal drugs sales which are run in this country by the CIA and the drug cartels they partner with, along with their distribution networks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though the Samourai Wallet guys is an interesting case as they’ve been arrested for essentially money laundering. as built into the wallet was a mixing service meant to provide financial privacy. As the Bitcoin<\/a> blockchain is a record of transactions, inputs and outputs, the feds run an organization that tracks Bitcoin transactions by using various means to attribute particular transactions to individuals or organizations, and can then follow later transactions involving those funds. A mixing service takes a lot of inputs from many people and then distributes it back out to them in a way that breaks this tracking, taking a fee for the service (new technologies are coming to Bitcoin for privacy later). So the Samourai Wallet creators would appear to be an example to anyone that wants to implement any of these privacy services with Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies that interfere with the federal government tracking transactions, unless done in a distributed way globally without being linked to particular individuals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And it’s conceivable that they may have knowingly facilitated actual money laundering of criminal organizations while taking fees for doing so (made millions of dollars as I recall), but it’s really a matter of if we deserve to have financial privacy on these platforms, for which the federal government and aligned OCGFC megacorps say a big resounding NO<\/strong>. And when it comes to your bank and other investments, there are constant reports of what you’re doing made to the federal government and you have no privacy as they can just request records. And through civil asset forfeiture<\/a>, the government is even taking your cash if you travel with a significant amount, all without due process of law or even having committed a crime, and the feds have even been involved in laundering it for a percentage as well. Following deductive logic, this is all because the OCGFC and their government stooges consider your money to be theirs until they can get it from you. For proof, try to take out some of your 401k money and see what you have to go through and pay in penalties with one of the OCGFC financial firms (and they’re using your money to create financial bubbles to profit from leaving you to eat the losses). So financial privacy should be something everyone can appreciate, which not many actually have, with a new perspective on who the criminal threat actually is. <\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/takes\/ross-ulbricht-is-free-now-lets-fight-for-the-samourai-devs<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n By Frank Corva<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yesterday, President Trump signed a full pardon<\/a> for Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht. This was a tremendous victory for the Bitcoin (and Libertarian) movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It proved with some time, effort and political coordination, the Bitcoin network state, to borrow a term from Balaji Srinivasan<\/a>, can facilitate real and important change via the highest levels of power at the nation-state level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While we should surely take a moment to celebrate, we should also keep in mind others in the Bitcoin and broader crypto space are currently facing unfair sentencing and we should be acting on their behalf. These others include the developers of Samourai Wallet, who are currently wrongfully being charged with operating an unlicensed money transmitting business<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this case, not only is the freedom of the developers involved at stake but our ability to use the privacy tools they\u2019ve created.<\/p>\n\n\n\nBy freeing Ross, the Bitcoin network state has proven it has political power. Now, we have to use it to make sure the the developers of Samourai Wallet don\u2019t go to jail.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n