worldcoinindex.com
President Donald Trump indicated on Monday that he is open to reviewing a potential pardon for Keonne Rodriguez, a developer behind the Bitcoin privacy tool Samourai Wallet, suggesting he is already familiar with the case.
Speaking during an event at the White House, Trump said the matter would be examined and directed U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to look into it. Bondi appeared to make a note as the exchange concluded.
Rodriguez was sentenced last month to five years in federal prison for operating what prosecutors classified as an illegal money transmission business. He is scheduled to report to a federal facility later this week. The charges stem from his role in building Samourai Wallet, software designed to let Bitcoin users transact privately without handing control of funds to intermediaries.
Federal prosecutors originally brought the case during the Biden administration, accusing Rodriguez and fellow developer William Longeran Hill of facilitating illicit activity through the software. While Trump’s Justice Department has dropped several crypto-related prosecutions initiated under the previous administration, the Samourai case moved forward.
Facing the possibility of sentences as long as 25 years if convicted at trial, both developers pleaded guilty to a single count this summer. Rodriguez received the maximum sentence allowed under that charge, while Hill was sentenced to four years.
The prosecution has become a flashpoint within the crypto community. Privacy advocates and developers argue the case has discouraged innovation, particularly after similar convictions involving blockchain privacy tools. They maintain that private, peer-to-peer transactions are a foundational principle of Bitcoin and that targeting software creators threatens that premise.
Industry groups have echoed those concerns, warning that criminal liability for writing open-source code could reshape how decentralized technologies are built. Although senior Justice Department officials have recently suggested a softer stance toward decentralized and privacy-focused software, critics point out that prosecutors still sought the harshest penalties available in this case.
Rodriguez has expressed skepticism that clemency will ultimately be granted, noting the contrast between his situation and that of high-profile crypto executives who have received pardons.
“We don’t have billions of dollars or that level of influence,” he said, underscoring what he sees as an uneven playing field as his prison term approaches.