Thread by @rizzn

So hey, I'm going offline for an indeterminate amount of time. I'm headed down to Beaumont FCI, where Uncle Sam will be footing the bill for my room and board for the next 6 to 15 months for the crime of selling #Bitcoin a few years ago.

You read that right. Did you know that transacting Bitcoin p2p is a federal crime punishable with up to five years imprisonment? I didn't either.

18 USC 1960, as interpreted by FinCEN back in the middle of 2019, says you must register federally to do so.

drive.google.com/file/d/16KEL5S…

If you only sorta kinda know me, you may not know that I've been in the crypto and bitcoin space since 2011.

One of the ways in which I've learned to network in the space is to put up an add on the OTC trading boards offering Bitcoin for sale.

When I was a full time journalist, it was a great way to learn who bitcoiners were at any point. When I moved towards consulting, it was great lead-gen.

When the pandemic hit and I sold my business in 2019, it was a great way to make ends meet while I found my next thing.

I've always been just one of hundreds of thousands of OTC traders on websites like @paxful and @LocalBitcoins. One of the hundred or so site users I regularly dealt with at the time, as it turns out, was being used as a mule in a lottery scam.

On October 23rd, I was raided by 15 armed agents, who waved guns and search warrants in the faces of my family, and proceeded to question us for five or six hours, and walked out with about $60,000 worth of my property (mostly electronics, laptops and phones).

After speaking transparently with agents, I thought that this was going to be the end of it (as I was not involved with my client's fraud), but two months later, the agents returned with a "target letter," imploring me to come in and speak with the US Attorney's office.

I proceeded to engage in a reverse-proffer and proffer meeting. I was told that they had enough evidence to convict me of my client's fraud, but because my wife shared a bank account with me, my wife as well.

This would be 35 years imprisonment for both of us.

This was clearly a scare tactic to push me into taking the plea deal they were offering, but I was very clear with them that there was no world in which I was taking a plea deal that implicated my wife.

She was uninvolved, despite their allegations, and we have kids to think of

They caved on that, and in return for taking my wife off the table, I accepted the plea agreement.

There's a lot more to say about the case, and I probably will say more at some point, but what I'd like my case to highlight are two things: the encroaching state war on privacy, and the general brokenness of the criminal justice system.

As I write these words, Texas and other states are pushing BTC adoption, literally manufacturing felons.

I have to wonder if I’ll fall into a trap like those who get caught with weed while nationwide legalization efforts take place, serving time for something that’s now legal.

The feds, at several points along the way, advised me that even though I was fully registered as a bitcoin seller with FinCEN paying a lawyer to get compliant in November, they did not consider my OTC operations to be legal.

Why? Because the federal guidelines advise to get state-level licensing as a Money Services Business.

If you check with most state level guidelines, simply engaging in p2p activities does not rise to requiring a license, and thus one won't be granted.

drive.google.com/file/d/1xZilSm…

Here's the thing that makes this important to pay attention to and resolve: I'm a nobody.

I'm not Ross. I wasn't on the dark web.
I'm not Edward. I didn't work for the NSA.
I'm not Julian. I didn't break national secrets.

I'm just a regular bitcoiner caught in the crosshairs.

According to research conducted by the Blockchain Law Center, the frequency at which nobodies like me are being persecuted under this law is increasing year over year, each year. The DoJ even holds clinics on how to apply this law more liberally.

docs.google.com/document/d/1Ru…

And all this resides within a system that *did* go after Ulbricht, Assange and Snowden. Those of us who dwell in CT forget that it's a bubble, and what we do is very foreign to the rest of the world.

When the state turns on us, we find little sympathy from the general public.

That's why I'm publishing this thread before I go in. We need to keep in mind that the state is constructing felonies for us, and the blockchain has a long memory. We need to advocate for sensible government as well as our fellow fallen cypherpunks.

That's a big part of why I've devoted a huge chunk of the time I've had between the raid and turning myself in this week to work at @FreeRossDAO. The principles at play in that organization are what will save us and our industry.

Here's my calls to action:
- Learn more about my case here: doctorbitco.in/linktree
- Write me at Ross's letter writing parties Tuesdays at 7pm CST: join.freerossdao.com.
- If you've political influence, pay attention to 18 USC 1960 abuse. It's a looming existential threat.

Update: I'm headed in to the facility now, so I'm muting this thread. My twitter account will be operated by my family while I'm out, so be nicer than you normally are, they're normies not in the cryptotwitter bubble.