The Wasabi Wallet team has blocked access for U.S. citizens and residents to its website and wallet, including the API and RPC interfaces.
The zkSNACKs coordinator is now blocking U.S. residents and citizens from using its coinjoin service.
— Wasabi Wallet (@wasabiwallet) April 27, 2024
“In light of recent statements by U.S. authorities, [the wallet developer] zkSNACKs strictly prohibits U.S. residents from using its services. IP address blocking is in effect on the websites wasabiwallet.io, api.wasabiwallet.io, and zksnacks.com,” the blog states.
zkSNACKs likely referred to the recent arrest of the Samourai Wallet founders. Federal prosecutors accused the service’s CEO Keonne Rodriguez and CTO William Lonergan Hill of laundering $100 million in criminal proceeds.
Wasabi Wallet is a privacy-focused non-custodial open-source Bitcoin wallet. It employs a coin mixing mechanism with mathematically proven anonymity, Chaumian CoinJoin.
Back in 2020, Europol identified Wasabi and Samourai wallets as a “major threat alongside centralized mixers” in the darknet due to their use of mixing technology.
Wasabi has frequently appeared in investigations as a tool for criminals to launder funds. For instance, a hacker who breached the KuCoin cryptocurrency exchange funneled part of the stolen bitcoins through this service.
In April 2024, CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju declared the legality of digital asset mixing services and criticized U.S. authorities for prosecuting Samourai developers. He was supported by former NSA and CIA employee Edward Snowden.