By doing so she may have infringed Executive Order (EO) 14233which stipulates that bitcoin obtained through criminal or civil forfeiture proceedings must be retained as part of the US Strategy Bitcoin Reserve (SBR).
If the Southern District of New York (SDNY), the federal judicial district in which the Samourai case would be tried, were to actually violate EO 14233, it would not be the first time that SDNY employees have acted in defiance of the federal government’s direction.
What happened to Bitcoin?
According to a document titled “Asset Liquidation Agreement,” which was exclusively obtained by Bitcoin Magazine and has not been made public until now, the bitcoin that Rodriguez and Hill forfeited will be sold – or has already been.
According to the document, the defendants agreed to transfer $6,367,139.69 worth of bitcoin – 57.55353033 bitcoin at the time the last party signed the agreement, which was Assistant United States Attorney Cecilia Vogel on November 3, 2025 – to the USMS.
The bitcoin, which was sent on November 3, 2025 from address bc1q4pntkz06z7xxvdcers09cyjqz5gf8ut4pua22r, appears to have bypassed any direct custody by the USMS. Instead, it appears to go directly to Coinbase Prime address 3Lz5ULL7nG7vv6nwc8kNnbjDmSnawKS3n8 (Arkham Intel assigns this address to the real estate agency), probably for sale.
This Coinbase Prime address currently has a zero balance, indicating that the bitcoin may have already been sold.
Violation of Executive Order 14233
If the USMS sold the forfeited bitcoin, it likely violated EO 14233, which orders that bitcoin obtained by the U.S. government through criminal forfeiture, referred to in the EO as “Government BTC,” “shall not be sold” and must be contributed to the U.S. SBR.
If the USMS sold the bitcoin, they did so at their discretion and not as a legal mandate, suggesting that certain members of the DOJ may still view bitcoin as a taboo asset to be divested, as opposed to a strategic asset that President Trump has ordered government agencies to preserve.
Given that the Samourai persecution originated under the previous administration, which was notoriously hostile to non-custodial crypto tools and their developers, the decision to ignore EO 14233 and sell bitcoin despite an executive branch mandate fits into a pattern of treating bitcoin as something that should be removed from government balance sheets as quickly as possible.
Legal details regarding the forfeiture and liquidation
According to a legal source close to this case, the Samourai developers forfeited their bitcoin under 18 US Code § 982(a)(1), which provides that any violation that violates 18 US Code § 1960, the statute that prohibits the operation of unlicensed money transfer businesses, directs the person to forfeit to the United States all property involved in the violation.
Relying on § 982 and the incorporation of 21 USC § 853(c), a criminal forfeiture statute that provides that “property subsequently transferred to a person other than the defendant may be the subject of a special judgment of forfeiture and thereafter forfeited to the United States,” the bitcoin that Rodriguez and Hill forfeited fits the EO’s definition of “Government BTC.”
Neither § 982 nor § 853 contained therein requires that property forfeited as part of a criminal offense be liquidated. In addition, the fund forfeiture statutes cited in section three of the EO – 31 USC § 9705 and 28 USC § 524(c) – govern where forfeiture proceeds are deposited and how they may be used; they do not require forfeited bitcoin to be converted into cash rather than held in kind.
The EO also stipulates that “Government BTC” falls under the umbrella of “Government Digital Assets” and states that “the head of each agency shall not sell or otherwise dispose of government digital assets” except in certain scenarios, none of which apply in the Rodriguez or Hill cases and, in all of these cases, the U.S. Attorney General would have a role in determining what to do with the forfeited digital assets.
The Sovereign District of New York
When EO 14233 and the statutes cited in this article are taken into account, the SDNY appears to have acted in a manner inconsistent with EO 14233’s mandate to transfer bitcoin obtained through criminal forfeiture to the U.S. SBR.
This would not be the first time the SDNY has acted in such a manner.
The judicial jurisdiction, colloquially known as the “Sovereign District of New York,” has developed a reputation for operating independently and unilaterally, despite being part of a federal system.
The fact that the SDNY went ahead with the cases against Rodriguez and Hill, as well as the case against Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm, is further evidence of this.
On April 7, 2025, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche issued a memo entitled ‘Ending Regulation By Prosecution’, in which he stated ‘the dept [of Justice] will no longer focus on virtual currency exchanges, mixing and tumbling services and offline wallets for the actions of their end users…’
However, the SDNY appeared to ignore the wording in this memo as they moved forward with the Samourai Wallet or Tornado Cash cases.
And then the defense team for Hill and Rodrguez learned according to a Brady request Because two senior members of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) “strongly suggested” that Samourai Wallet did not function as a money transmitter due to the non-custodial nature of the service, the prosecution proceeded.
When it comes to criminal cases tried within the federal court system, more than 90% of defendants are convicted, while in some years only 0.4% are acquitted. And prosecuting SDNY cases has a reputation for an even higher win rate.
Rodriguez was aware of these statistics, as well as the fact that Judge Denise Cote, the judge who presided over his and Hill’s cases, has a reputation for imposing harsh sentences.
He told me that the morning before he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to operate an illegal money transmitter.
Is the war against crypto really over?
Many Bitcoin and crypto proponents who voted for President Trump in 2024, as well as the crypto industry, which supported the president in his re-election, are now beginning to question whether or not President Trump really wants to see an end to the war on crypto.
For this to happen, the DOJ under President Trump must respect what is mandated in EO 14233 and follow Deputy Attorney General Blanche’s directives to stop prosecuting developers of non-custodial crypto technology.
On this last point, President Trump recently stated that this is the case considers pardoning Rodriguez.
If he pardons Rodriguez and lets the DOJ investigate why it sold the bitcoin that the Samourai developers forfeited, it would send a signal that the president is quite serious about his pro-Bitcoin and pro-crypto stance.
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