Samourai co-founder claims Biden-era lawfare in calling for Trump pardon

cointelegraphPublicado em 2025-12-19Última atualização em 2025-12-19

Resumo

Keonne Rodriguez, co-founder of Samourai Wallet, is publicly requesting a pardon from President Donald Trump after pleading guilty to operating an unlicensed money transmitter and receiving a five-year sentence. Rodriguez claims his prosecution was "lawfare" by a "weaponized Biden DOJ" with no victims involved. His plea mirrors language used in successful pardon applications, such as those for Silk Road's Ross Ulbricht and former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao. Rodriguez expressed hope that Trump, who previously stated he would "take a look" at the case, will view the prosecution as an anti-innovation, anti-American attack and grant him and co-founder William Hill a pardon.

Keonne Rodriguez, who pleaded guilty to one felony count related to his role at Samourai Wallet, is calling on US President Donald Trump to pardon him, citing similar language that has been successful in previous pardon applications.

In a Thursday X post, Rodriguez said he would report to prison on Friday, where he will serve a five-year sentence for operating an illegal money transmitter. The Samourai co-founder claimed there were no “victims” to his crime, and blamed his incarceration on “lawfare perpetrated by a weaponized Biden DOJ.”

In a message tagging Trump, Rodriguez expressed hope that the US president would issue a federal pardon for him and William “Bill” Lonergan Hill, another Samourai executive who pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four years. Rodriguez blamed “activist judges” for his legal troubles, claiming he was targeted by a “political anti-innovation agenda.”

“I maintain hope that [Trump] is a fair man, a man of the people, who will see this prosecution for what it was: an anti innovation, anti american, attack on the rights and liberties of free people,” said Rodriguez. “I believe his team [...] and others truly want to end the weaponization of the DOJ that the previous administration wielded so effectively [...] I believe he will continue to wield that power for good and pardon me and Bill.”

Source: Keonne Rodriguez

Related: Samourai Wallet co-founders to now plead guilty to US charges

Rodriguez’s public plea followed Trump's statement that he would “take a look” at a pardon for the Samourai co-founder, claiming that he had no knowledge of the case. It’s unclear whether Rodriguez filed an official application for a pardon or is relying on public statements to get the president’s attention.

Other crypto execs successfully lobbied for a Trump pardon

One of Trump’s first acts as president in January was to issue a pardon for Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, who had been serving a life sentence for his role in creating and operating the darknet marketplace.

Former Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, who pleaded guilty to one felony in 2023 related to the exchange’s Anti-Money Laundering program, served four months in prison but also received a pardon from the president. Trump later said he “[knew] nothing about” Zhao when asked about the pardon in a November interview.

Rodguiez’s language addressing Trump mirrored comments from the White House on previous pardons. For example, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said it was a “weaponization of justice from the previous administration” when the president commuted the sentence of David Gentile, who was convicted of defrauding “thousands of individual investors in a $1.6 billion” scheme in 2024.

Crypto users on Polymarket were not given the choice of betting on the odds of a Trump pardon of Rodriguez as of Friday. At the time of publication, Trump ally Steve Bannon had the highest odds, at 9%.

Magazine: When privacy and AML laws conflict: Crypto projects’ impossible choice

Perguntas relacionadas

QWhat crime did Keonne Rodriguez plead guilty to and what is his sentence?

AKeonne Rodriguez pleaded guilty to one felony count related to operating an illegal money transmitter and was sentenced to five years in prison.

QWho is the other Samourai executive mentioned in the article and what was his sentence?

AThe other executive is William 'Bill' Lonergan Hill, who pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four years in prison.

QWhich two prominent figures in the crypto space did President Trump previously pardon, as mentioned in the article?

APresident Trump pardoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht and former Binance CEO Changpeng 'CZ' Zhao.

QWhat reason does Rodriguez give for his prosecution, and what does he hope President Trump will do?

ARodriguez blames his prosecution on 'lawfare perpetrated by a weaponized Biden DOJ' and 'activist judges,' and he hopes President Trump will issue a federal pardon for him and his colleague.

QAccording to the article, what was the stated reason for the pardon of David Gentile, as an example of similar language used by the White House?

AThe stated reason for David Gentile's commutation was a 'weaponization of justice from the previous administration.'

Leituras Relacionadas

Morning Post | Trump Media Group Releases Q1 Financial Report; Top Three DeFi Applications Return Nearly $100 Million in Revenue to Token Holders in 30 Days; Michael Saylor Shares Bitcoin Tracker Info Again

**Title: Daily Briefing | Trump Media Group Releases Q1 Report; Top 3 DeFi Apps Return Nearly $100M to Token Holders; Michael Saylor Signals Potential Bitcoin Buy** **Summary:** Key developments in the past 24 hours include: * **Economic Outlook:** Goldman Sachs has pushed back its forecast for the next two Federal Reserve interest rate cuts to December 2026 and March 2027, citing persistent inflationary pressures from energy costs. This delayed timeline is expected to tighten liquidity flow into risk assets, including cryptocurrencies. * **DeFi & Revenue:** Data from DefiLlama shows that three leading DeFi applications—Hyperliquid, Pump.fun, and EdgeX—collectively distributed $96.3 million in revenue to their token holders over the last 30 days. This trend highlights a shift in the crypto community's focus towards real protocol earnings and sustainable economic models. * **Corporate Bitcoin Moves:** Michael Saylor, founder of MicroStrategy (note: referred to as 'Strategy' in the text, likely a typographical error), has signaled potential upcoming Bitcoin purchases by posting a "Bitcoin Tracker" update, following a pattern that typically precedes the company's official disclosure of new acquisitions. * **Market Integrity:** Prediction market platform Polymarket announced updates to address platform issues, including identifying and banning clusters of accounts involved in "ghost-fill" activities and implementing measures to prevent bulk account creation. * **Regulation:** The Bank of England Governor warned that stablecoin regulation could lead to tensions between US and international regulators. In South Korea, the National Tax Service has launched a pilot program to entrust seized virtual assets to private custody firms for management. * **Meme Token Trends:** GMGN data lists the top trending meme tokens on Ethereum (e.g., HEX, SHIB), Solana (e.g., FWOG, TROLL), and Base (e.g., SKITTEN, PEPE) over the past day. **Financial Note:** Trump Media & Technology Group reported a Q1 loss of approximately $4 billion, primarily attributed to unrealized losses on its Bitcoin and other digital asset holdings.

链捕手Há 20m

Morning Post | Trump Media Group Releases Q1 Financial Report; Top Three DeFi Applications Return Nearly $100 Million in Revenue to Token Holders in 30 Days; Michael Saylor Shares Bitcoin Tracker Info Again

链捕手Há 20m

Telegram Takes Direct Control of TON, Social Traffic Rewrites the Public Chain Narrative

Telegram founder Pavel Durov announced that Telegram will replace the TON Foundation as the core driver and largest validator of The Open Network (TON). Key initiatives include a sixfold reduction in transaction fees, performance upgrades, and improved developer tools within the next few weeks. This marks a strategic shift from Telegram merely providing user access to deeply integrating TON into its platform's core infrastructure. The goal is to transform Telegram's massive social traffic into sustainable on-chain activity. While viral mini-apps like Notcoin have demonstrated Telegram's ability to drive user adoption, TON aims to support frequent, low-value transactions inherent to social platforms—such as tipping, in-app payments, and game rewards. Ultra-low fees and sub-second finality (0.6 seconds) are crucial to making blockchain interactions seamless and nearly invisible within the Telegram user experience. However, Telegram's increased central role raises questions about network decentralization. Durov argues that Telegram's participation will attract more large validators, thereby enhancing decentralization. TON also offers high annual staking rewards (18.8%), aiming to retain capital within its ecosystem. The fundamental challenge for TON is no longer leveraging Telegram's user base, but becoming an indispensable, seamless infrastructure layer for Telegram's everyday applications—moving from an adjacent chain to an embedded utility.

marsbitHá 21m

Telegram Takes Direct Control of TON, Social Traffic Rewrites the Public Chain Narrative

marsbitHá 21m

Telegram Takes Direct Control of TON, Social Traffic Reshapes Public Chain Narrative

Telegram's founder, Pavel Durov, has announced a major shift in the development of The Open Network (TON). Telegram will now become the core driver of TON, replacing the TON Foundation and becoming its largest validator. The focus will be on technical upgrades over the next few weeks, including slashing network fees by six times to near-zero and improving finality time to 0.6 seconds. This move signifies a deeper integration between Telegram and TON, moving beyond just providing a user base. The goal is to transform Telegram's vast social traffic and built-in features—like Mini Apps, payments, and bots—into sustainable, on-chain usage scenarios. The reduced fees and faster speeds are crucial for enabling the small, frequent transactions typical of social interactions. While this promises stronger execution and product alignment, it raises questions about centralization. Durov argues Telegram's involvement will attract more validators, enhancing decentralization, but the outcome remains to be seen. Additionally, TON's high annual staking reward of 18.8% aims to retain capital within the ecosystem. The key challenge for TON is no longer just leveraging Telegram's entry point, but becoming an invisible, seamless infrastructure layer within Telegram's daily use. Its success hinges on converting viral attention into lasting, embedded utility.

Odaily星球日报Há 31m

Telegram Takes Direct Control of TON, Social Traffic Reshapes Public Chain Narrative

Odaily星球日报Há 31m

OpenAI Post-Training Engineer Weng Jiayi Proposes a New Paradigm Hypothesis for Agentic AI

OpenAI engineer Weng Jiayi's "Heuristic Learning" experiments propose a new paradigm for Agentic AI, suggesting that intelligent agents can improve not just by training neural networks, but also by autonomously writing and refining code based on environmental feedback. In the experiment, a coding agent (powered by Codex) was tasked with developing and maintaining a programmatic strategy for the Atari game Breakout. Starting from a basic prompt, the agent iteratively wrote code, ran the game, analyzed logs and video replays to identify failures, and then modified the code. Through this engineering loop of "code-run-debug-update," it evolved a pure Python heuristic strategy that achieved a perfect score of 864 in Breakout and performed competitively with deep reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms in MuJoCo control tasks like Ant and HalfCheetah. This approach, termed Heuristic Learning (HL), contrasts with Deep RL. In HL, experience is captured in readable, modifiable code, tests, logs, and configurations—a software system—rather than being encoded solely into opaque neural network weights. This offers potential advantages in explainability, auditability for safety-critical applications, easier integration of regression tests to combat catastrophic forgetting, and more efficient sample use in early learning stages, as demonstrated in broader tests on 57 Atari games. However, the blog acknowledges clear limitations. Programmatic strategies struggle with tasks requiring long-horizon planning or complex perception (e.g., Montezuma's Revenge), areas where neural networks excel. The future vision is a hybrid architecture: specialized neural networks for fast perception (System 1), HL systems for rules, safety, and local recovery (also System 1), and LLM agents providing high-level feedback and learning from the HL system's data (System 2). The core proposition is that in the era of capable coding agents, a significant portion of an AI's learned experience could be maintained as an auditable, evolving software system.

marsbitHá 1h

OpenAI Post-Training Engineer Weng Jiayi Proposes a New Paradigm Hypothesis for Agentic AI

marsbitHá 1h

Your Claude Will Dream Tonight, Don't Disturb It

This article explores the recent phenomenon of AI companies increasingly using anthropomorphic language—like "thinking," "memory," "hallucination," and now "dreaming"—to describe machine learning processes. Focusing on Anthropic's newly announced "Dreaming" feature for its Claude Agent platform, the piece explains that this function is essentially an automated, offline batch processing of an agent's operational logs. It analyzes past task sessions to identify patterns, optimize future actions, and consolidate learnings into a persistent memory system, akin to a form of reinforcement learning and self-correction. The article draws parallels to similar features in other AI agent systems like Hermes Agent and OpenClaw, which also implement mechanisms for reviewing historical data, extracting reusable "skills," and strengthening long-term memory. It notes a key difference from human dreaming: these AI "dreams" still consume computational resources and user tokens. Further context is provided by discussing the technical challenges of managing AI "memory" or context, highlighting the computational expense of large context windows and innovations like Subquadratic's new model claiming drastically longer contexts. The core critique argues that this strategic use of human-centric vocabulary does more than market products; it subtly reshapes user perception. By framing algorithms with terms associated with consciousness, companies blur the line between tool and autonomous entity. This linguistic shift can influence user expectations, tolerance for errors, and even perceptions of responsibility when systems fail, potentially diverting scrutiny from the companies and engineers behind the technology. The article concludes by speculating that terms like "daydreaming" for predictive task simulation might be next, continuing this trend of embedding the idea of an "inner life" into computational processes.

marsbitHá 1h

Your Claude Will Dream Tonight, Don't Disturb It

marsbitHá 1h

Trading

Spot
Futuros

Artigos em Destaque

Como comprar ERA

Bem-vindo à HTX.com!Tornámos a compra de Caldera (ERA) simples e conveniente.Segue o nosso guia passo a passo para iniciar a tua jornada no mundo das criptos.Passo 1: cria a tua conta HTXUtiliza o teu e-mail ou número de telefone para te inscreveres numa conta gratuita na HTX.Desfruta de um processo de inscrição sem complicações e desbloqueia todas as funcionalidades.Obter a minha contaPasso 2: vai para Comprar Cripto e escolhe o teu método de pagamentoCartão de crédito/débito: usa o teu visa ou mastercard para comprar Caldera (ERA) instantaneamente.Saldo: usa os fundos da tua conta HTX para transacionar sem problemas.Terceiros: adicionamos métodos de pagamento populares, como Google Pay e Apple Pay, para aumentar a conveniência.P2P: transaciona diretamente com outros utilizadores na HTX.Mercado de balcão (OTC): oferecemos serviços personalizados e taxas de câmbio competitivas para os traders.Passo 3: armazena teu Caldera (ERA)Depois de comprar o teu Caldera (ERA), armazena-o na tua conta HTX.Alternativamente, podes enviá-lo para outro lugar através de transferência blockchain ou usá-lo para transacionar outras criptomoedas.Passo 4: transaciona Caldera (ERA)Transaciona facilmente Caldera (ERA) no mercado à vista da HTX.Acede simplesmente à tua conta, seleciona o teu par de trading, executa as tuas transações e monitoriza em tempo real.Oferecemos uma experiência de fácil utilização tanto para principiantes como para traders experientes.

452 Visualizações TotaisPublicado em {updateTime}Atualizado em 2025.07.17

Como comprar ERA

Discussões

Bem-vindo à Comunidade HTX. Aqui, pode manter-se informado sobre os mais recentes desenvolvimentos da plataforma e obter acesso a análises profissionais de mercado. As opiniões dos utilizadores sobre o preço de ERA (ERA) são apresentadas abaixo.

活动图片

Categorias popularesright-arrow

Etiquetas Popularesright-arrow