Samourai Wallet Co-Founder William Hill Sentenced to 4 Years in Prison

The 67-year-old received a reduced sentence due to his autism diagnosis and age, but the case marks another major crackdown on privacy tools in the cryptocurrency industry.

The Charges and Guilty Plea

Hill and his co-founder Keonne Rodriguez pleaded guilty in July 2024 to conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business. Both men avoided more serious charges through a plea agreement that dropped money laundering accusations carrying up to 20 years in prison.

U.S. District Judge Denise L. Cote handed down the sentence along with three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine. Hill will begin serving his time on January 2, 2026, and may receive credit for approximately 11 weeks he already spent in a Portuguese prison before his extradition.

Prosecutors alleged that Samourai Wallet facilitated over $237 million in illegal transactions. According to court documents, the criminal proceeds came from drug trafficking, darknet marketplaces, cyber-intrusions, frauds, murder-for-hire schemes, and a child pornography website.

Source: justice.gov

How Samourai Wallet Operated

Starting around 2015, Hill and Rodriguez developed Samourai as a mobile Bitcoin wallet with special privacy features. The app centered on two main tools designed to hide transaction trails on the blockchain.

The first feature, called “Whirlpool,” launched in 2019 and worked by mixing Bitcoin from different users together. This process made it nearly impossible to trace where specific coins originally came from. The second tool, “Ricochet,” added extra steps between sending and receiving addresses to further confuse anyone trying to track the money.

Between 2017 and 2024, more than 80,000 Bitcoin—worth over $2 billion at the time—passed through these services. The platform generated approximately $6 million in fees, which Hill and Rodriguez later had to forfeit to the government.

Evidence Against the Developers

Prosecutors built their case using private messages and online posts from both founders. Court records showed Hill promoted Samourai on Dread, a darknet forum used to discuss illegal marketplace activities. In one exchange, he told users Samourai Whirlpool was the best option to “clean dirty BTC.”

Rodriguez also encouraged criminals to use the platform. After hackers broke into a social media platform in 2020, he personally urged them to “feed” and “send” stolen funds into Samourai’s Whirlpool service. In a WhatsApp conversation, Rodriguez described the mixing process as “money laundering for Bitcoin.”

Federal agents arrested both men on April 24, 2024. Rodriguez was taken into custody in Pennsylvania, while Hill was arrested in Portugal. Authorities also seized Samourai’s website and removed the app from Google’s Play Store in the United States.

Defense Arguments and Sentencing

Hill’s defense attorney, Roger Burlingame, argued that his client’s recently diagnosed autism impaired his judgment. Burlingame explained that Hill had a “magical thinking, autistic view” that made him believe non-custodial wallets gave him legal protection since they didn’t hold customer funds.

The lawyer asked Judge Cote to sentence Hill to time served, pointing out that the three months he spent in a Portuguese prison was already difficult. Burlingame described how the forced socialization of prison life would be “torture” for someone with Hill’s extreme sensitivity to social situations.

During the hearing, Judge Cote questioned whether Hill understood his actions were morally wrong, not just illegal. When Hill addressed the court, he became emotional while discussing the impact on his wife and family. “I told myself that my work was about freedom, but in truth, I was rationalizing my own hubris,” Hill said. “I take full responsibility for my actions.”

Judge Cote acknowledged that prison would be more difficult for Hill than for most people. She originally planned to impose the maximum 60-month sentence prosecutors requested but reduced it to 48 months because of his autism diagnosis and advanced age of 67.

Impact on the Crypto Industry

Hill’s sentence came two weeks after Rodriguez received the maximum five-year term for the same crime. Rodriguez must surrender to authorities on December 19, 2025.

The case has sent shockwaves through the cryptocurrency world. Other privacy-focused wallet developers quickly distanced themselves from similar features. Wasabi Wallet and Phoenix Wallet blocked American users, while Sparrow Wallet removed its coin-mixing integration entirely.

Critics point to what they see as unfair treatment compared to traditional banks. JPMorgan paid $290 million to settle sex trafficking allegations in 2023 without any executives going to jail. TD Bank faced the largest-ever Bank Secrecy Act penalty for allowing over $1 billion in criminal money through its system, yet no one was imprisoned.

“Open-source developers deserve protection, not persecution,” said Bitcoin-focused company Foundation in response to the sentencing.

The Department of Justice did offer some hope to developers in August 2025. Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Galeotti announced that “merely writing code without ill intent is not a crime.” However, this new guidance came too late for Hill and Rodriguez, whose case started before the policy change.

The Bigger Picture

The Samourai case is part of a larger government effort to crack down on cryptocurrency mixing services. In August 2025, Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm was convicted of running an unlicensed money transmitter, though jurors couldn’t agree on money laundering charges.

Bitcoin Fog founder Roman Sterlingov was also convicted last year for facilitating over $400 million in illegal drug sales. Other mixing services like Blender and Sinbad have been sanctioned by the U.S. government.

The uncertainty has driven many blockchain developers out of the United States. The share of blockchain developers based in America dropped from 25% to 18% between 2021 and 2025 as they sought countries with clearer regulations.

U.S. Attorney Nicolas Roos emphasized the government’s position: “The sentences the defendants received send a clear message that laundering known criminal proceeds—regardless of the technology used or whether the proceeds are in the form of fiat or cryptocurrency—will face serious consequences.”

Walking the Tightrope

Hill and Rodriguez were convicted partly because their own words showed they knew criminals were using their service. Developers who stay neutral, avoid targeting illegal users, and focus on legitimate privacy needs may have better protection under the new Justice Department guidelines. But the line between legal and illegal privacy tools remains unclear, leaving the future of financial privacy in digital currency uncertain.