Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche appears to have provided some assurances to software developers, as the Department of Justice continues to pursue litigation against Roman Storm and other developers of Tornado Cash.
Speaking on Monday at the Bitcoin 2026 conference, Blanchard participated in a panel discussion with FBI Director Kash Patel. Blanchard stated that developers would not face charges if they did not assist third-party criminals.
His remarks were a response to a question posed by Coinbase's Chief Legal Officer, Paul Grewal, regarding how developers should interpret the agency's actions, and mentioned that both the Tornado Cash and Samurai Wallet cases were initiated during the Biden administration but are still ongoing under the Trump administration.
Last year, Roman Storm, the developer of the cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash, was found guilty of conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, but the jury could not reach a consensus on two additional, more serious charges, including conspiracy to launder money and conspiracy to violate U.S. sanctions.
In November last year, Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill, co-founders of Samourai Wallet, were sentenced in a similar case for operating the Samourai Bitcoin mixer. President Donald Trump has been explicitly asked whether he will review the case and grant pardons to Rodriguez.
Since then, cryptocurrency supporters have rallied behind Storm, Rodriguez, and Hill.
“The basic principle is that if you’re developing software, if you’re a programmer, if you’re involved in this process, and you… didn’t help third parties use what you developed to commit crimes—you won’t be investigated or prosecuted,” Blanch said Monday, adding that facts such as evading sanctions and money laundering are important.
“But I really need developers to understand, and I really need the entire industry to understand, that we have fundamentally changed the game when it comes to investigations,” he said.
After Trump dismissed former Attorney General Pam Bondi, Blanch took over as acting Attorney General, having previously served as Deputy Attorney General. While serving as Deputy Attorney General, he issued a memorandum stating that the department would avoid bringing cases that effectively impose a regulatory framework on digital assets, and that regulation should be handled by regulatory agencies rather than through criminal enforcement.
Meanwhile, FBI’s Patel emphasized that his primary focus is on pig butchering scams—also known as romance scams, in which scammers build relationships with victims to trick them into fraudulent investments.
“This summer, I will continue conducting this work on the ground in Cambodia, Myanmar, and Thailand, because the issue is very serious, and this is the only way to address it and eliminate the misunderstanding between actual crimes and fraud in the virtual assets space and the legitimate use of Bitcoin and virtual assets,” Patel said.