Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche said the Department of Justice and FBI will no longer target blockchain developers for how their platforms are used, instead shifting enforcement toward individuals who actually engage in financial crime.
Speaking at a Bitcoin conference in Las Vegas alongside FBI Director Kash Patel and Coinbase chief legal officer Paul Grewal, Blanche said the government’s investigative approach has undergone a major shift. He emphasized that developers who are not directly involved in illicit activity—or knowingly assisting it—will not be pursued, stating that authorities have “fundamentally changed the game” in how such cases are handled.
“The basic principle is that if you are developing software… and you are not helping or knowingly enabling criminal use, you are not going to be investigated or charged,” Blanche said.
The remarks signal a notable change in tone compared to previous enforcement actions, such as those involving the privacy protocol Tornado Cash, which faced sanctions and criminal cases tied to alleged money laundering and sanctions evasion. The protocol was sanctioned in August 2022 and later had those sanctions lifted in November 2024. Developers Roman Storm and Roman Semenov were charged in 2023; Storm was convicted in August 2025, while Semenov remains at large.
Ongoing uncertainty over enforcement boundaries
While Blanche’s comments were broadly welcomed by the crypto community, some experts say key questions remain unresolved.
Coin Center executive director Peter Van Valkenburgh described the statement as a more encouraging message than in recent years, but noted it still leaves ambiguity around where authorities draw the line between publishing noncustodial software and knowingly facilitating illegal activity.
He pointed to a case involving developer Michael Lewellen, who sought legal clarity from the DOJ over whether his Ethereum-based crowdfunding tool could be classified as money transmission. A Texas court dismissed the case in late March, ruling that Lewellen failed to show a credible threat of enforcement.
Van Valkenburgh argued that this creates a contradiction: while the DOJ acknowledges developers’ concerns, it simultaneously resists efforts to provide formal legal clarity, leaving many in the space uncertain about how the rules will ultimately be applied.
“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 shift in enforcement has been developing for over a year. In April 2025, Todd Blanche issued a memo outlining a new approach, emphasizing that developers would no longer be held liable for how users interact with their platforms or for unintentional regulatory violations.
The memo also signaled a move toward “ending regulation by prosecution,” aiming to provide clearer boundaries for the industry.
“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 during the Las Vegas conference.
