Between 1974 and 1986, the Golden State Killer carried out 13 known murders, more than 67 sexual assaults, and 120 burglaries across 11 jurisdictions in California — then vanished without a trace. His identity stayed hidden for over three decades until a groundbreaking investigative method finally brought him to justice. By combining forensic DNA analysis with genealogical research — a technique known as Investigative Genetic Genealogy (IGG) — we cracked the case, and I led the prosecution team that held him accountable. Since that breakthrough, law enforcement agencies worldwide have used IGG to solve more than a thousand cold cases. But imagine if lawmakers had stepped in to heavily restrict or outright ban this technology. Countless victims — children, women, and grieving families — would have been denied the justice they deserved.
We should be encouraging innovation, not penalizing it. In fields like cryptocurrency, vague regulations and inconsistent enforcement breed confusion, stifle progress, and push entire industries underground or overseas. This kind of environment doesn’t protect anyone — it simply creates openings for true criminals to exploit legal loopholes and prey on the vulnerable without consequence.
As Sacramento’s District Attorney, I’ve spent over 25 years holding offenders accountable. I’ve prosecuted gang members, hate crime perpetrators, and drug traffickers. I’ve also taken on fraud, financial crimes, corruption, and sophisticated technology-related offenses. Having authored and helped pass legislation myself, I understand that both prosecutors and the public need clear, well-defined laws. I know what real criminal conduct looks like, and I can tell the difference between someone who has genuinely broken the law and an entire industry being targeted by statutes that were never designed to apply to them.
That distinction has never been more critical. Federal prosecutors have been weaponizing a decades-old statute against software developers who never handled a customer’s money, never ran a traditional business, and never had any criminal intent. As someone who has dedicated my career to justice, I can say plainly: that is not justice — it is overreach.
Congress passed 18 U.S.C. Section 1960 to go after money-transmitting businesses — storefront operations, wire services, and exchange houses that handle other people’s funds while evading the licensing requirements put in place to prevent money laundering. It was crafted as the enforcement arm of the Bank Secrecy Act’s licensing framework, aimed directly at conventional money services businesses. It was a well-conceived tool for a well-defined purpose. What it was never intended to do is turn the act of writing software into a crime.
Yet that is exactly what has happened. Federal prosecutors have stretched Section 1960 to target developers of noncustodial, peer-to-peer blockchain technology. These individuals built open-source tools that automate transactions between consenting parties — but they never held a single dollar of user funds, never had “customers” in any meaningful sense, and never possessed the ability to intercept or redirect anyone’s assets. Neither the developers nor their software ever controlled or transferred other people’s money. Charging them under a law designed for traditional financial intermediaries is a fundamental error — it is both misinformed and misdirected. Justice demands that we charge people based on what they actually did, under laws actually written to address that conduct.
This “regulation-by-prosecution” approach to crypto development fails that standard completely. It chills open-source innovation and drives U.S.-based developers overseas. It unfairly brands some individuals with criminal convictions and undermines American leadership in a field of enormous financial significance. The U.S. share of open-source developers dropped from 25% in 2021 to 18% in 2025, largely because of the absence of clear rules governing software development. Every developer we push abroad is someone now building infrastructure outside the reach of U.S. oversight — and beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement when things go wrong.
That is not a victory for public safety. It is a wound we are inflicting on ourselves.
The encouraging news is that some of this is starting to shift. In April 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a memorandum titled “Ending Regulation-by-Prosecution,” making it clear that the DOJ would not pursue pure regulatory violations under Section 1960. Following the memo, the DOJ stated it would not approve new Section 1960 charges “where the evidence shows that software is truly decentralized and solely automates peer-to-peer transactions, and where a third party does not have custody and control over user assets.” That is what the law has always required.
But a memorandum is not a statute, and a policy speech is not the law. Prosecutorial guidance can shift with each new administration and each new U.S. Attorney. The American innovation community and the public at large deserve clarity that is written into law. That is why the Promoting Innovation in Blockchain Development Act, now before Congress, deserves serious support. It restores Section 1960 to its original purpose: protecting the public from unlicensed financial intermediaries.
I am not blind to the reality of bad actors. There are genuine criminals who use digital assets to launder money and defraud victims — and I have prosecuted them. I fully support vigorous enforcement against these individuals under the full weight of applicable law. The answer is not to blur the line between the tool and the person who misuses it. We don’t prosecute email providers for wire fraud. We identify the actual offender, build the case on evidence, and bring charges accordingly.
Section 1960 remains a powerful weapon against real money-transmitting criminals in the digital asset space. Custodial exchanges that knowingly process illicit proceeds, centralized mixers operated specifically to hide illegal funds, and platforms that ignore FinCEN registration while holding customer assets — these are legitimate targets, and the law already reaches them. There is no need to stretch it to cover a software developer working out of a Sacramento apartment who wrote a peer-to-peer protocol and never touched a dime of anyone else’s money.
I came to this country as a child refugee from Vietnam, with nothing but my family and the conviction that America rewards hard work and upholds the rule of law. The rule of law cuts both ways. It shields communities from violent crime, but it also protects innovators from government overreach.
I lead an office of nearly 500 employees that handles close to 30,000 cases a year. As the head of the second-largest District Attorney’s Office in Northern California, I have stood in courtrooms for 25 years, sworn to represent victims, the vulnerable, and those without a voice. I believe that getting this distinction right should be a basic obligation of our federal government. Section 1960 is a sound law that has been misapplied to those developing genuinely decentralized finance technology. Fix the application, go after the actual criminals, and let American innovation thrive. That is what justice demands — and that is what I will continue fighting for.
