The government should promote innovation, not punish it

From 1974-1986, the Golden State Killer committed 13 known murders, upwards of 67 sexual assaults and 120 burglaries in 11 different jurisdictions in California, but then he suddenly stopped. He simply disappeared, and his identity remained a secret for over 30 years, until we finally caught him using a new innovative technology. Utilizing Investigative Genetic Genealogy (IGG), which combines forensic DNA analysis and genealogical research, we cracked the case, and I led the prosecution team that brought the Golden State Killer to justice. Since we first used IGG to solve this case, law enforcement around the world has solved over a thousand cold cases using this innovative technology. But what would have happened if lawmakers suddenly overregulated, or worse yet, banned the use of IGG? We would see countless children, women and grieving families denied their due measure of justice.

We should promote innovation, not punish it. In areas such as cryptocurrency, ambiguous rules and enforcement lead to confusion and stifle growth, which drives industries underground and offshore. This creates an environment where real “bad actors” exploit the law and target the vulnerable – and get away with it.

As the District Attorney of Sacramento, I have spent more than 25 years holding people accountable. I prosecuted gang members, charged hate crime offenders and went after drug traffickers. I have also prosecuted fraud, financial crimes, corruption and high-tech crimes at the highest levels. As someone who has authored and helped pass legislation, I am mindful that both prosecutors and the public need clarity about the laws that govern them. I know what real crime looks like, and I know the difference between a genuine criminal and an industry caught in the crosshairs of a law that was never meant for them.

That distinction matters now more than ever, as federal prosecutors have been weaponizing a statute against software developers who have never touched a customer’s funds, never operated a business in the traditional sense, and never harbored criminal intent. As someone who has devoted his career to justice, I am here to say that is not justice, that is overreach.

Congress enacted 18 U.S.C. Section 1960 to target money-transmitting businesses, such as storefronts, wire services, and exchange houses that handle other people’s money and skirt the licensing requirements designed to prevent money laundering. It was designed as the enforcement mechanism for licensing requirements under the Bank Secrecy Act, aimed squarely at traditional money services businesses. It was a sensible tool for a sensible purpose. What it was never meant to do is criminalize the writing of software.

Yet that is precisely what has happened. Federal prosecutors have stretched Section 1960 to reach developers of noncustodial, peer-to-peer blockchain technology. These are people who built open-source tools that automate transactions between willing parties, but who never held a single dollar of user funds, never had “customers” in any real sense of the word, and never had any ability to intercept or redirect assets. Neither the developers nor the software itself controls other people’s funds or transfers funds on their behalf. Charging them under a statute built for traditional financial intermediaries is a mistake, because it is misinformed and misdirected. As prosecutors, justice requires that we charge people with what they actually did, under laws designed to cover it.

The “regulation-by-prosecution” approach to crypto development fails that test badly. This approach chills open-source innovation, pushing many U.S. developers offshore. This unfairly saddles some with a criminal conviction and erodes American technological leadership in an area of consequential financial innovation. The U.S. share of open-source developers fell from 25% in 2021 to 18% in 2025, driven by a lack of clear rules for software development. Every developer we chase overseas is a developer who now builds infrastructure beyond the reach of U.S. oversight and beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement when something does go wrong.

That is not a win for public safety; that is a self-inflicted wound.

The good news is that some of this is beginning to change. In April of 2025, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a memorandum entitled “Ending

Regulation-by-Prosecution,” making clear that the DOJ will not enforce pure regulatory violations under Section 1960. Following the memo, the DOJ announced it would not approve new Section 1960 charges “where the evidence shows that software is truly decentralized and solely automates peer-to-peer transactions, and where a third party does not have custody and control over user assets.” That is what the law has always required.

But neither a memo nor a speech is a statute. Prosecutorial guidance can change with administrations and with U.S. Attorneys. The American innovation community and the public deserve clarity written into law. That is why the Promoting Innovation in Blockchain Development Act now before Congress deserves serious support. It restores the original intent of Section 1960: protecting the public from unlicensed financial intermediaries.

I am not naive about bad actors – there are genuine criminals who use digital assets to launder money and defraud victims. I have prosecuted them. I support robust enforcement against these criminals with the full weight of applicable law. The answer here is simply not to abandon the distinction between the tool and the criminal who wields it. We don’t charge email providers for wire fraud. We identify the actual bad actor, build the case and prosecute with evidence.

Section 1960 remains a powerful instrument against genuine money-transmitting criminals in the digital asset space. Custodial exchanges that knowingly process criminal proceeds, centralized mixers operated specifically to obscure illicit funds, platforms that flout FinCEN registration while holding customer assets – these are legitimate targets, and the law reaches them. It does not need to be stretched to reach a software developer in a Sacramento apartment who wrote a peer-to-peer protocol and never held a dime of someone else’s money.

I came to this country as a child refugee from Vietnam, with nothing but my family and the belief that America rewards hard work and respects the rule of law. The rule of law cuts both ways. It protects communities from violent crime, but it also protects innovators from overreach.

I run an office of nearly 500 employees that prosecutes nearly 30,000 cases a year. As the head of the second-largest District Attorney’s Office in Northern California, I have stood in courtrooms for 25 years and sworn to represent victims, the vulnerable and the voiceless. I believe that getting this distinction right should be a basic obligation of our Federal Government. Section 1960 is a good law that has been misused in relation to those involved in developing truly decentralized finance technology. Fix the application, target the actual criminals and let American innovation breathe. That is what justice demands, and that is what I will keep fighting for.