🚨 NEW: The Samourai developers - Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill - have both pled guilty to count 2 of their indictment, the conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitter business charge. More details in the video below:

“We will prevent labeling Bitcoin and any kind of privacy payment and communication tools as something negative… We need to have a solution in which privacy is not something which is bad. It’s actually [our] main right and this right needs to be protected.” @Lyudmyla Kozlovska

The defense rests in the Tornado Cash trial, and the Samourai devs change their plea from “not guilty” to “guilty.” My thoughts on both:

Is there anyone you’d like to see me speak with on my pod regarding the Tornado Cash trial, especially as it’s coming to a close? Please drop suggestions in the comments.

Here’s a version of a thread on the Tornado Cash trial that I posted on X earlier today… (When threads on Nostr??) Dr. Matthew Edman is the first witness on the stand today. He’s a co-founder and partner at the blockchain cybersecurity firm Naxo, and he’s a cryptography expert. Thus far, in his direct testimony, guided by the defense’s Ms. Axel, he’s distilled how Ethereum works and defined terms such as “non-custodial” and “immutable”. He’s also explained how smart contracts worked and described how and why the Tornado Cash smart contracts were immutable. He’s made it clear to the jury that, as of May 18, 2020, Roman Storm had no ability to alter TC smart contracts nor access user funds with those smart contracts. He also highlighted that the TC pools still exist and that the pools themselves don’t charge any fees. He explained to the jury what TC relayers are and what the purpose of the TC DAO was. He commented on a slide that was made and presented by IRS Special Agent George that detailed the TORN tokens that SA George said each of the TC founders held as of Dec. 18, 2020, noting that the founders didn’t have access to these tokens at the time (which was when, I believe, SA George said Storm had sent these tokens to Binance to sell them - please don’t quote me on this yet, though; I need more info). Dr. Edman also explained that the DAO can’t modify TC pools, only the ancillary smart contracts through the governance process. He also explained how GitHub works and the difference between UI and CLI. Dr. Edman described how the code for the TC UI could be downloaded and run by different parties, not just the TC devs. He also detailed the nature of IPFS, which the TC UI ran on, and which he described as a “decentralized database.” He also discussed how Storm implemented Geoblocking for the TC UI as well as the Chainalysis oracle, which blocked sanctioned addresses from using the TC UI. Dr. Edman has also challenged the findings of Mr. Werlau and SA DeCapua. He was particularly harsh in his critique of Mr. Werlau’s gas ratio analysis. IMO, Dr. Edman has been a particularly strong witness, but, unfortunately, the jury looked a bit bored and maybe even overwhelmed as he walked the court through a lot of technical jargon and how it applies to the case. Hopefully, the jury grasped enough of what he had to say, as it presented a version of events that shows that Storm and the TC devs didn’t have as much control over the TC front end (and definitely not of the pools) as the prosecution claimed. During the prosecution’s cross-examination of Mr. Edman, Mr. Edman agreed that most TC deposits went through the TC router between Dec. 2020 and Aug. 2022. The prosecution also brought up how the full source code for TC wasn’t made available via GitHub until July 2022. Dr. Edman contextualized by stating that a minified version of the code was available via GitHub starting in Sept. 2020. The prosecution also highlighted that fewer than 50 addresses with TORN tokens voted in some of the DAO votes and that the TC founders could have had a large degree of influence over votes because of how many tokens they had (post Dec. 2021, when they got access to their tokens). The prosecution made an effort to get Dr. Edman to share that the source code for geoblocking via the TC UI was never implemented, but Dr. Edman didn’t confirm this. During the last ten minutes of the trial day, a second witness, Tyler Alameida, cybersecurity expert at Coinbase, took the stand to briefly share how he used TC to maintain his privacy when he made an ETH donation to the Ukrainian war fund.

As week three of the Tornado Cash trial commenced, the defense’s expert digital forensics witness took the stand and questioned the integrity of the claims made by the blockchain tracers and analysts that the prosecution had testify.

Bitcoin Magazine

Tornado Cash Trial Enters Week Three, Defense’s Expert Digital Forensics Witness Takes The Stand

Dr. Matthew J. Edman, a specialist in cybersecurity and crypto investigations, detailed for the court how Tornado Cash works and challenged certain...

I just need to hear Goggins’ voice for about 30 seconds before any semblance of an excuse for what I really wanted to do has completely disappeared from my mind.

Building brick by brick an underrated approach. You don’t always need a clever strategy. Just start hitting some singles.

Bitcoin included

Tried to upload today’s video on the Tornado Cash trial, but it keeps failing when I try to upload it through Nostr Build :/ (No shade on NB. It’s large file.) The video is up on X if you’re still active there, as well. https://x.com/frankcorva/status/1948497385157455921?s=46&t=AY92ObXBoX1GzIBM1vb6Iw

Based on today's testimony from IRS Special Agent Stephan George, the odds of the defense submitting a motion for mistrial in the Tornado Cash case seem slim. More in my latest:

Bitcoin Magazine

Mistrial Motion In Tornado Cash Case Is Unlikely

IRS Special Agent Stephan George’s testimony regarding some of Hanfeng Lin’s stolen funds having been put through Tornado Cash seemed credible ...

Based on the examination and cross-examination of IRS Special Agent George, the odds of a mistrial in the Tornado Cash case based on potentially inaccurate info re: the funds of a scammed victim having possibly not been put through Tornado Cash seem low.

I was honored to have Congressman Warren Davidson as the second guest on Bitcoin Politics. We discussed: 📌 The Bank Secrecy Act 📌 How CLARITY fills gaps in GENIUS 📌 The Samourai Wallet and Tornado Cash cases 📌 What Bitcoin fixes 📌 The right to financial privacy Enjoy!

A beautiful story enabled in part by bitcoin donations. @Brindon ⚡️ @Bitcoin Kampala Uganda

Bitcoin Magazine

Orphanage In Uganda That Runs On Bitcoin Celebrated Bitcoin Pizza Day With A Road Trip

A team that helps operate the Orphans of Uganda Children’s Center, which runs in part on international bitcoin donations, took the orphans on a f...