The situation in the US is bad, but it’s not *that* bad.
First of all, writing a wallet where you neither make money nor host any services (i.e. a pure OS software wallet) has much more powerful defenses that didn’t come up in the TC case.
Second, and importantly, this judge didn’t give any material thought to the actual question that mattered here, and will be the focus of the appeal, so it’s far from settled, see https://www.coincenter.org/analysis-the-disappointing-denial-of-tornado-devs-motion-to-dismiss/
Third, never underestimate the value of prosecutorial discretion. Building a wallet that is privacy-focused and where you have private messages between founders talking about Bad People using your product and you do absolutely nothing despite operating the frontend entirely centralized isn’t a good look and prosecutors decide charges based on looks. Obviously I’m not gonna personally run to take the risk operating an LSP in the US under this argument, but let’s not overstate what the actual risk is here.
Finally, let’s get the law changed! The CLARITY Act already passed the house with section 109 protecting developers from these kinds of charges and draft language from the senate has even stronger protections! The senate is in recess, so now’s a great time to go to a town hall and harass your senators!
…or at least make a phone call. Look up the numbers at saveourwallets.org
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