This decision is believed to be related to the arrest of Samourai Wallet's founding team last weekend.
Wasabi Bitcoin Wallet Blocks US Users Indefinitely. Photo: Crypto News
zkSNACKs, the company behind Bitcoin wallet Wasabi Wallet, announced it will stop serving US users indefinitely.
The zkSNACKs coordinator is now blocking US residents and citizens from using its coinjoin service.
— Wasabi Wallet (@wasabiwallet) April 27, 2024
Accordingly, zkSNACKs will prohibit US customers and some other territories, including from bypassing the firewall, accessing the website, downloading and using Wasabi Wallet or any related products and services.
However, zkSNACKs has not yet revealed the reason for the hasty change. It seems that this decision is related to the arrest of Samourai Wallet founders Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill on April 24. This is also an anonymous Bitcoin wallet, aiming to protect privacy and is of concern to the community as well as often being accused of money laundering by foreign authorities.
Samourai Wallet provides money mixing service, taking the previous user's money, mixing it with the next person and withdrawing a new wallet to hide transaction information. US regulators accused Samourai Wallet of processing about $2 billion in illegal transactions and laundering more than $100 million. Rodriguez is currently in detention and awaiting trial, while Mr. Hill has been arrested in Portugal and awaiting extradition.
The arrest of Samourai's founding team also follows charges against the founder of Tornado Cash , another famous coin-mixing protocol on the Ethereum blockchain. The U.S. Department of Justice argued that the Tornado Cash team knowingly profited from the service of erasing criminals' money traces and argued that this pattern was enough to justify money laundering. Meanwhile, many lobby groups are fighting to protect the rights of open source developers.
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