PANews reported on December 4th, citing Cointelegraph, that calls for a US presidential pardon for Samourai wallet developers Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill are growing, with Bitcoin advocates and policy groups urging Trump to intervene before the two men are imprisoned next year. Rodriguez and Hill were sentenced in November to five and four years in prison, respectively, for pleading guilty to conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transfer business. Under a plea agreement, they only admitted to conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transfer business; the money laundering charges were dropped. Unless pardoned, both men are scheduled to begin their prison sentence in early January 2026.

Several prominent figures in the Bitcoin community have publicly expressed their support for a pardon, including veteran broadcaster and Bitcoin advocate Max Keiser, Bitcoin media entrepreneur Marty Bent, and Bitcoin podcast host Walker America. Zack Shapiro of the Bitcoin Policy Institute (BPI) defended a full pardon, arguing that the Samourai case wrongly applied federal remittance laws to non-custodial software, and that upholding the original verdict could stifle innovation in privacy-preserving Bitcoin tools in the United States. As of press time, a petition demanding a pardon for the Samourai developers has garnered over 3,200 signatures, receiving support from the Bitcoin community and others.