Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel told the Bitcoin 2026 Conference in Las Vegas on April 27 that Bitcoin developers who write code without knowingly helping third parties commit crimes will not be investigated or charged, marking the clearest public statement on developer liability from the nation’s top law enforcement officials since the Tornado Cash prosecutions began.
Summary
- Blanche said the DOJ has “fundamentally changed the game” and that developers who are not knowingly helping users commit crimes are not going to be investigated or charged, while noting that laundering money or violating sanctions remains criminal regardless of whether the actor is a coder.
- Patel told the audience that the FBI’s focus has shifted toward crypto fraud networks including pig-butchering scam centers tied to foreign adversaries, with plans to travel to Cambodia, Myanmar, and Thailand this summer to conduct related enforcement work.
- Both Blanche and Patel appeared via videoconference rather than in person because they were needed in Washington DC after an assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday night.
Bitcoin developers received the clearest federal reassurance in years when Acting AG Blanche and FBI Director Patel addressed the Bitcoin 2026 Conference on April 27 via videoconference, moderated by Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal. Bitcoin Magazine reported that Blanche told the audience: “If you are developing software, if you are a coder, if you are part of that process and you are not the third-party user and you are not helping and knowing the third party is using what you develop to commit crimes, you are not going to be investigated and not going to be charged.” Patel said Bitcoin “isn’t going anywhere” and framed it as economic infrastructure alongside other assets that power everyday life.
Bitcoin Developers Get a Federal Assurance Built on a Specific April 2025 Memo
The policy Blanche described at the conference is grounded in a memo he issued in April 2025 as Deputy Attorney General, which directed the DOJ to end “regulation by prosecution” in crypto cases and disbanded the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team. As crypto.news reported, that memo explicitly directed prosecutors away from cases targeting developers who create neutral tools later used by third parties, and the DOJ cited it when narrowing the charges against Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm ahead of his trial. Blanche was careful to draw the line precisely: writing code is protected, but knowingly facilitating money laundering or sanctions violations is not. “The mere fact that you happen to be a coder doesn’t excuse you from criminal liability,” he said. He added that developers who receive subpoenas should feel comfortable having their lawyers communicate directly with prosecutors and with him personally if they believe the case is inconsistent with his memo.
What the Blanche Remarks Mean for the Samourai Wallet and Roman Storm Cases
The clearest test of whether Blanche’s statement translates into changed outcomes will be the Roman Storm retrial. As crypto.news documented, Storm was convicted in August 2025 of operating an unlicensed money transmitter but the jury deadlocked on the two more serious charges of money laundering and sanctions violations, which carry up to 40 years in federal prison. SDNY prosecutors subsequently filed for an October retrial on those two unresolved counts. Blanche acknowledged “lingering” and “procedurally complicated” cases at the conference without naming them specifically, saying “we’re continuing to deal with” such cases while emphasizing the policy shift is real. As crypto.news tracked, the trial demonstrated that even within the existing prosecution framework, jurors struggled with the technical distinction between writing code and criminally conspiring to facilitate its misuse.
What Patel’s Enforcement Redirect Means for Crypto Fraud Victims
Patel’s message was distinct from Blanche’s developer-focused framing. Patel described pig-butchering scam networks operated out of Southeast Asia as the FBI’s primary crypto enforcement priority, saying he plans to travel to Cambodia, Myanmar, and Thailand this summer to coordinate enforcement with local authorities. As crypto.news noted, the DeFi Education Fund sent a letter to White House crypto czar David Sacks on April 28, 2025, asking Trump to discontinue what it called the “Biden-era DOJ’s lawless campaign to criminalize open-source software development,” and the industry has been watching whether Blanche’s April 2025 memo would actually change outcomes rather than just rhetoric. Grewal summarized the combined message from both officials as “crime is criminal; code alone shouldn’t be,” a framing the industry has sought from federal law enforcement for three years.
Peter Van Valkenburgh of Coin Center said the message is a step forward but that the key question remains unanswered: exactly how the DOJ draws the line between publishing open-source code and actionable knowledge of wrongdoing. The Roman Storm retrial in October will be the first real test of whether the policy shift Blanche described changes the outcome of a case already in the system.
Source: https://crypto.news/bitcoin-developers-are-not-doj-targets-blanche-says/
