In true The Rage style, this report is a little breathless, but then again, perhaps there is reason to be sensational about these sorts of precedents around privacy:
it's probably been some of the worst weeks for financial privacy that the United States has ever experienced.
Strong statement. What's got The Rage all worked up is this:
The decision against Sterlingov's appeal, who, among other things, argued that Washington D.C. was not the right venue for his prosecution, relied heavily on the argumentation that "every payment in[to Bitcoin Fog]" was part of advancing the criminal conspiracy because "it increases the size of the pool of bitcoin funds that are shuffling around and obscuring identities," as one of the judges opined in May.
Particularly, this statement:
"The government presented a plethora of evidence establishing that transfer of funds to and from Bitcoin Fog furthered Bitcoin Fog’s ability to launder the funds of all users."
I don't think it goes as far as The Rage speculates here, but
a binding precedent now finds that funds deposited into a mixer-like protocol have indeed contributed to the concealment of illicit proceeds.
If taken at face value, it could mean that the US Government might be able to charge anyone depositing funds into a mixer-like technology with engaging in a conspiracy to commit money laundering, even though a protocol like Tornado Cash and a centralized mixer like Bitcoin Fog are substantially different technologies – as they both rely on the use of a variety of funds to conceal the origin of transactions.
But I'm sure the government prosecutors wouldn't mind the ability to incriminate anyone who seeks privacy.
This is despite the fact that the Clarity Act did not get passed (with or without expanding the Patriot Act to cover Bitcoin transactions) and that FinCEN has the "mixer rule" #1589430
As The Rage puts it:
if the prosecution of Roman Storm is allowed to continue under such argumentation; and without clear protections for developers and users of financial privacy technologies – ones that go beyond the lip service of agency officials – mixer-like technologies may be even further criminalized than even the mixer-rule originally intended.
Here is the Federal Register entry regarding withdrawing FinCEN's mixing rule:
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/10/06/2026-20429/proposal-of-special-measure-regarding-convertible-virtual-currency-mixing-as-a-class-of-transactions
It is a short read and seems generally positive for privacy. Even if the courts are going about attacking privacy from different avenues.
This privacy news is scary. Feels like they want to punish anyone who wants privacy.
This is the scariest part....the court didn't just say Bitcoin Fog laundered money, it said any deposit furthered the conspiracy because it enlarged the anonymity set. That logic makes the tool itself the crime, not the intent. By that standard, coinjoin, mixers, even privacy coins are fair game. The "plethora of evidence" is just usage data. Precedent-wise, this is a disaster.