Preface: I’m not a lawyer and I have no idea what I’m talking about
I’ve been reading articles diving into this whole Samourai thing and thought a few points made were interesting. One being that the software/mixer/protocol itself isn’t necessarily what the DOJ is going after them for. From the press release:
are each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, and one count of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
The key word in both charges being “conspiracy”. The DOJ press release also highlights tweets/messages where they allegedly endorsed/marketed to bad actors.
Another interesting article:
In my amateur reading of it, it seems like the fact that they released code and a wallet isn’t what they are being charged for: it’s that they allegedly marketed to and allegedly knew that the service was being used by bad actors and they allegedly planned to or did profit off the service by taking fees.
My personal perspective on it:
I don’t think that same kind of argument could be made against Zcash whos community (including myself) have been known to discourage illicit use of Zcash. Plus the Zcash founders and core teams have actively worked to educate law enforcement and DC regulators about how Zcash works and added features that allow users to comply with AML/CFT regulations.