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Zack Shapiro
3,210 posts
Zack Shapiro
@zackbshapiro
Managing Partner @rainsllp. AI-Enabled Corporate Lawyer, Head of Policy @bitcoinpolicy, ex-@DavisPolk, @YaleLawSch, @WilliamsCollege
Just revealed: FinCEN explicitly told prosecutors Samourai Wallet wasn't a money transmitter due to its non-custodial design; DOJ prosecuted developers anyway, suppressing exculpatory evidence for a year.
BREAKING: 🇺🇸 Federal Reserve threatens to sue #Bitcoin Magazine in attempt to silence criticism of its FedNow service.- Right now there is $40 Billion in the ESF that can be used to buy Bitcoin in a “budget neutral” manner under this Executive Order. Let that sink in…The SBR EO is more bullish than most onlookers were anticipating: “The Secretaries of Treasury and Commerce are authorized to develop budget-neutral strategies for acquiring additional bitcoin, provided that those strategies have no incremental costs on American taxpayers.”
- The seizure of $15 billion in bitcoin from a criminal enterprise built on human trafficking and financial fraud is exactly the kind of outcome the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve was designed to enable. Under Section 3(d) of the SBR Executive Order, any coins that can be traced toJUST IN: 🇺🇸 US government will seek forfeiture of 127,271 #Bitcoin worth $14.1 billion tied to pig butchering scam 👀
- Today I’m sharing an open letter to Democratic Senate offices urging them to reject Democrats' proposed DeFi framework and preserve the developer protections at the heart of the CLARITY Act. Code is speech. Publishing software is not a crime.
- For SBR skeptics: would you rather these coins hit the market all at once in a Government auction, or are you glad that Treasury is now obligated by executive order to hold the ~127k BTC on our national balance sheet?JUST IN: 🇺🇸 US Government seizes $15 billion worth of Bitcoin from 'pig butchering' scam based in Cambodia.
- P2P Rights Fund just received a pseudonymous 3.5 BTC donation, in the highest Bitcoin tradition of contributing to peer-to-peer innovation without expectation of personal fame or reward. Thank you, whoever you are. The legal defense teams badly need resources to keep up the
- "The Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of Commerce shall develop strategies for acquiring additional Government BTC provided that such strategies are budget neutral and do not impose incremental costs on United States taxpayers. However, the United States Government
- Replying to @zackbshapiroUnlike the text of @DavidSacks’s tweet, the actual text of the EO *directs* commerce and treasury to develop strategies to buy BTC, rather than merely empowering them to do so.
- "The legislation fails to address real gaps in BSA coverage with respect to stablecoins' use . . . with respect to self-hosted [i.e. non-custodial] wallets that lack know-your-customer (KYC) requirements . . ." Here you go, folks, in black and white. These 46 "advocacy groups,"Democratic staff on the Senate Banking Committee sent around a letter this AM signed by several dozen advocacy orgs opposing the GENIUS Act. Includes ACRE, AFR, Center for Responsible Lending, Our Revolution, Public Citizen, Tech Oversight Project...
- This is the former Chief of Staff at the @SECGov in the Gensler/Warren era. Does not understand (or care) about the difference between a custodial exchange and a peer-to-peer protocol—which is of the utmost legal importance both to Securities laws and Illicit Finance
- For Bitcoiners who upset about the Samourai Wallet outcome, this is our best shot going forward. @RealAngelaMc was one of the main driving forces behind the Ross pardon, so please reach out with any support you can give 👇🏼The Samurai Wallet sentencing is terrible. I am working on it. I am working on a LOT of these cases. I need Bitcoiners to flex their influence right now. You need to make calls to the admin. We will not win this in woke courts. We can win in the Whitehouse.
- Today’s verdict was awful and can set dangerous precedent. Same with last week’s guilty pleas. But the worst thing we can do right now is embrace the chilling effect and tell builders to stop building. The Blanche Memo is still in place, and there is no need to preemptively
