The Case That Could Silence the Open Internet

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.