Blockchain Legal Resource

On April 7, 2025, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche issued a memorandum to all DOJ employees entitled “Ending Regulation By Prosecution.” The memorandum describes DOJ’s new priorities regarding prosecution of crimes involving digital assets and the broader cryptocurrency industry.

The memo begins by noting that DOJ “is not a digital assets regulator” and “will no longer pursue litigation or enforcement actions that have the effect of superimposing regulatory frameworks on digital assets while President Trump's actual regulators do this work outside the punitive criminal justice framework.” With President Trump’s executive order on digital assets in mind, going forward DOB will “focus on prosecuting individuals who victimize digital asset investors, or those who use digital assets in furtherance of criminal offenses such as terrorism, narcotics and human trafficking, organized crime, hacking, and cartel and gang financing.”

The memorandum then lays out a series of priorities for federal prosecutors. DOJ will prioritize cases involving use of digital assets in furtherance of unlawful conduct by cartels, transnational criminal organizations, terrorist organizations, and parties subject to US sanctions. Accordingly, DOJ will pursue the “illicit financing of these enterprises by the individuals and enterprises themselves, including when it involves digital assets, but will not pursue actions against the platforms that these enterprises utilize to conduct their illegal activities.” To this end, DOJ will generally not target virtual currency exchanges, mixing and tumbling services, and offline wallets for the acts of their end users or unwitting violations of regulations.

Instead, the memo instructs prosecutors to prioritize cases against individuals who cause financial harm to digital asset investors and consumers or use digital assets in furtherance of other criminal conduct. Prosecutors are instructed not to charge regulatory violations in cases involving digital assets including unlicensed money transmitting under 18 U.S.C. § 1960(b), violations of the Bank Secrecy Act, unregistered securities offering violations, unregistered broker-dealer violations, and other violations of registration requirements under the Commodity Exchange Act-unless there is evidence that the defendant knew of the licensing or registration requirement at issue and violated such a requirement willfully.

The memo lays out a series of other priorities as well, including compensating victims in the digital asset space and participating in the President’s Working Group on Digital Assets. Further, the memo disbands the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team and shifts responsibility to the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section to liaise on digital asset issues.