Key Takeaways
- Coin Center argues that the First Amendment protects publishing crypto software as free speech.
- The group argues regulators may police real intermediaries and illegal conduct, but cannot invent a “missing middleman” when software lets users act for themselves.
- The paper arrives as Tornado Cash, Samourai Wallet and related cases keep the legal boundary between writing code and operating a service under pressure.
Coin Center is trying to move one of crypto’s hardest legal debates back to first principles.
In a paper published on April 21, the Washington-based crypto policy group argued that writing and publishing software remains protected speech under the First Amendment, even when the code is executable and useful for financial activity.
Drawing on cases including Lowe v. SEC and Bernstein, Coin Center said the Constitution does not create a weaker category of speech simply because code can do things in the world.
Its core point is narrower and more consequential: regulators can oversee intermediaries, but they cannot treat software publication itself as a regulated financial service.
What Coin Center Is Actually Arguing
Coin Center’s paper is not a blanket defense of every developer in every circumstance. It is trying to restore a legal boundary that crypto enforcement has steadily blurred.
The group argues that traditional financial regulation was built for actors who hold customer assets, exercise delegated judgment, route transactions on behalf of users or otherwise stand in an intermediary role.
Software publishers often do none of those things. They write and release tools.
Other people decide whether and how to use them.
From Coin Center’s perspective, regulators cross a constitutional line when they respond to the disappearance of a traditional gatekeeper by assigning that gatekeeper’s duties to the author of the code.
That is where the phrase “missing middleman” comes in.
Agencies cannot simply assume an intermediary exists, as their rulebook requires one.
If software allows users to transact directly, the absence of a broker or custodian does not give the government a license to redefine publication itself as regulated conduct.
Why Tornado Cash Made This Fight Urgent
Tornado Cash is the case that made this issue impossible to ignore.
Treasury sanctioned Tornado Cash in 2022.
In November 2024, the Fifth Circuit ruled that Tornado Cash’s immutable smart contracts were not “property” under the sanctions law Treasury had used.
In March 2025, Treasury removed Tornado Cash from the sanctions list, saying it had reviewed the “novel legal and policy issues” raised by using sanctions in evolving technological environments.
That sequence exposed a mismatch between older regulatory categories and software that can continue operating without a conventional operator in the middle.
It also brought the central question in Coin Center’s paper into sharper focus: when autonomous code is released into the world, and no one can truly own or switch it off, on what grounds can the government treat its authors as active financial intermediaries?
The Legal Line Between Publishing Code And Running A Service
Coin Center is trying to make that boundary clearer.
The paper says the state can regulate custody, operation and illegal conduct where those roles genuinely exist.
The key issue is factual: who controlled the funds, who executed transactions for others, and who actually ran the service.
Coin Center argues that publishing software should not, by itself, place a developer inside a regulated financial role.
In the report’s view, that is a constitutional question involving prior restraint and the line between protected speech and professional conduct.
That question carries extra weight in crypto because software now handles functions once performed by institutions.
Users sign transactions directly. Smart contracts carry them out.
A front end may help surface a tool without holding assets or assuming fiduciary duties.
Coin Center’s concern is that regulators may try to fit these systems into older legal categories that were built for very different kinds of financial actors.
Why This Matters Beyond Mixers
The paper reaches far beyond privacy tools.
Its logic touches wallets, front ends, DeFi interfaces and other non-custodial software that helps users move assets without surrendering control to a centralized operator.
If the government can stretch money-transmitter or intermediary theories around software publication in one part of crypto, developers elsewhere have little reason to assume they are outside the blast radius.
The Samourai Wallet case reinforced that concern.
In April 2024, federal prosecutors charged co-founders Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill with conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, saying Samourai executed more than $2 billion in unlawful transactions and facilitated more than $100 million in criminal proceeds.
The charges showed that pressure on software builders extends beyond Tornado Cash.
That is why Coin Center’s paper matters even for developers building products with nothing to do with mixers.
The real dispute is over where authorship ends, and operation begins and whether that line will be drawn through legislation and case law or improvised through prosecutions.
The Bigger Stakes For Crypto Developers
Crypto’s next major legal fight may center on whether publication itself can trigger licensing obligations.
As software absorbs functions once carried out by regulated intermediaries, pressure is growing to define where authorship ends and regulated activity begins.
Coin Center argues that this line should turn on role, conduct and control.
Regulators, in their view, can pursue criminals, custodians and operators where those roles genuinely exist.
It warns that regulators may sweep software publication into frameworks designed for financial intermediaries.
The issue is becoming more important as the law remains unsettled, enforcement pressure stays high, and the boundary between toolmaker and operator remains one of the central open questions in crypto policy.
PhD, researcher and writer exploring AI, blockchain, and the philosophy of tech, with a focus on DeScAI, governance, and trust.
