Samourai Wallet Founders Plead Guilty
Samourai Wallet founders Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiracy charges connected with the Bitcoin privacy service. The pleas marked a major procedural stage in a prosecution closely watched by Bitcoin privacy and self-custody advocates.
On July 30, 2025, Samourai Wallet founders Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill pleaded guilty in the Southern District of New York to conspiracy charges arising from their operation of the Bitcoin privacy wallet and mixing service. The pleas replaced the uncertainty of the pending criminal case with admissions of criminal liability at the federal trial-court level, while sentencing remained for a later stage.
Samourai Wallet had become prominent among privacy-focused Bitcoin users because its software included tools designed to make transaction histories more difficult to trace. Federal prosecutors alleged that the service facilitated large volumes of unlawful transactions and had operated as an unlicensed money transmitting business. The case was closely watched because Samourai was also described by supporters as non-custodial software, raising broader questions about where U.S. criminal law would draw lines between software publication, privacy tools and financial intermediation.
The July guilty pleas did not resolve every legal and policy debate surrounding non-custodial Bitcoin software, but they substantially changed the posture of one of the most important U.S. Bitcoin privacy prosecutions of the period. Sentencing followed in November. July 30 marked the point at which both founders themselves admitted criminal liability under the plea agreements.