It was only a matter of time before the war over digital sovereignty shifted from boardrooms in Silicon Valley to federal courtrooms across the United States. That moment has now arrived. At stake is a question with enormous implications: Can writing code be a crime?
The Department of Justice thinks it can be, under certain circumstances. And a growing coalition of digital rights and blockchain advocacy groups says the DOJ is dangerously wrong.
The dispute revolves around Michael Lewellen, a software developer who authored a non-custodial decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol. His goal was to release it publicly as open-source software.
The DOJ, however, believes Lewellen’s project violates a 1992 statute designed to combat unlicensed money-transmitting businesses.
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