Acting US AG Says Devs Will No Longer Be Charged Unless they Knowingly Help Third Parties Commit Crimes

Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche said the US Department of Justice and FBI are no longer targeting blockchain developers over platforms used for illegal activity, instead shifting focus to the users engaged in financial crime.

Speaking at a Bitcoin conference in Las Vegas alongside FBI Director Kash Patel and Coinbase chief legal officer Paul Grewal on Monday, Blanche said that the approach to enforcement has significantly changed under the Trump administration.

The acting attorney general explained that as long as developers have nothing to do with illicit activity, the DOJ and FBI have no reason to go after them, noting that “we have fundamentally changed the game when it comes to our investigations.”

“The basic principle is that if you are developing software, if you are a coder, if you are part of that process and you are not the third-party user, and you are not helping and knowing the third party is using what you developed to commit crimes, you are not going to be investigated and not going to be charged,” he said.

The comments mark a shift in tone from the US government, which had taken strong action against the developers of platforms like Tornado Cash. The crypto mixer and privacy protocol faced significant enforcement action over illicit activity facilitated on the platform, such as money laundering and sanctions evasion.

Tornado Cash was sanctioned by the Office of Foreign Assets Control in August 2022 before the sanctions were lifted in November 2024. Developers Roman Storm and Roman Semenov were indicted in August 2023; Storm was convicted in August 2025, while Semenov remains at large. Storm has denied any wrongdoing.

Source: Cointelegraph

Doubts remain over DOJ’s approach

Blanche’s comments were seen as positive within the crypto community, but some argued that more work needs to be done to provide developers with clarity. 

Responding to Blanche on X, Coin Center executive director Peter Van Valkenburgh said it was a “better message than developers have heard from DOJ in recent years,” but the message still leaves room for doubt. 

“But the real question is where [the] DOJ draws the line between publishing noncustodial software and ‘helping’ or ‘knowing’ about a bad user,” he said. 

Van Valkenburgh pointed to a court case in which developer Michael Lewellen sued the DOJ for pre-enforcement clarity on whether publishing his Ethereum-based crowdfunding tool constituted money transmission.  

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The case was dismissed in late March, with a Texas court finding that Lewellen had failed to demonstrate that there was a credible threat of enforcement from the DOJ. 

“DOJ is publicly acknowledging that developers are still sleeping with one eye open. At the same time, DOJ is telling the courts that Lewellen should not be allowed to ask for legal clarity because there is no credible threat,” he said, adding:  

“If the law is so clear why are devs sleeping with one eye open? If the law is so clear why fight to have the case dismissed?”

The DOJ’s change in approach has been taking shape for more than a year. In April 2025, Blanche released a memo explaining how the DOJ would handle enforcement differently going forward.

The memo outlines a commitment to “ending regulation by prosecution,” under which developers will not be targeted for the actions of users of their platforms or for unwitting regulatory violations.

“I do not want any platform to look at the Department of Justice or the FBI as somebody who’s going to just cause them a lot of problems,” Blanche said at the Las Vegas conference. 

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