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President Donald Trump said Monday that he will review a pardon request for Keonne Rodriguez, the co-founder of privacy-focused Bitcoin wallet Samourai, who was sentenced last month to five years in prison on money laundering charges.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office alongside Attorney General Pam Bondi, Trump responded to a question about the case: “I’ve heard about it. I’ll look at it.” When pressed on why a pardon might be warranted, he added, “It sounds like, based on your question, Rodriguez. We’ll look at that, Pam. Okay.”
Rodriguez, arrested in April 2024 with co-founder William Hill under the Biden administration, pleaded guilty in July to conspiracy to commit money laundering and operating an unlicensed money transmitter. Prosecutors alleged Samourai’s mixing feature facilitated $237 million in illicit transactions, though the wallet was non-custodial and did not hold user funds.
In a post on X following Trump’s remarks, Rodriguez wrote: “Your continued noise is working. Thank you to everyone pushing @realDonaldTrump to pardon Bill and me. Let’s get this over the line. #pardonsamourai.” His prison term is scheduled to begin on December 20, 2025.
Your continued noise is working. Thank you to everyone pushing @realDonaldTrump to pardon Bill and me. Let's get this over the line. #pardonsamourai https://t.co/LN3qnksrL5
— Keonne Rodriguez (@keonne) December 15, 2025
The potential pardon has energized the crypto community, with the #pardonSamourai hashtag trending and a petition nearing 100,000 signatures. Supporters have drawn similarities between the case and Trump’s earlier pardons of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht and Binance ex-CEO Changpeng Zhao, viewing it as part of a broader shift from aggressive enforcement.
The Samourai Wallet prosecution was inherently unfair & insane, Keonne explains that getting @realDonaldTrump's attention on this takes signatures on the petition.
Sign & share the petition to #pardonsamourai https://t.co/jPoACjgvlV pic.twitter.com/42iohhIjSB
— burn the bridge (@econoalchemist) December 13, 2025
The Trump administration’s consideration of a pardon for Samourai Wallet co-founder Keonne Rodriguez comes amid heightened global scrutiny of privacy tools, including a Europol-led operation last month that shut down Cryptomixer.io, a Bitcoin mixer accused of laundering €1.3 billion since 2016, and seized €25 million in assets along with 12TB of transaction data.
If he's really a "pro-Bitcoin" president, he'll do this https://t.co/alvYppGaZg
— Alex Gladstein 🌋 ⚡ (@gladstein) December 16, 2025
Supporters in the crypto community view a potential pardon as a strong signal of U.S. commitment to privacy innovation, which could deter aggressive prosecutions and keep developers operating domestically rather than shifting to more lenient jurisdictions.
Bitcoin traded at $86,199.59 on December 16, down by 4.13%.
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