The DeFi Education Fund and leading crypto companies have called out the U.S. Department of Justice for its "unprecedented and overly expansive” interpretation of criminal code that has been used to define crypto firms as unlawful money transmitters. 

In a letter signed today and addressed to leaders of the House and Senate Committees on Banking and Judiciary, and the House Committee on Financial Services, the DeFi Education Fund said that the DOJ’s position, which first appeared in 2023, “threatens the viability of U.S.-based software development in the digital asset industry and other industries.”

The letter was signed by 34 companies, foundations, and associations in the crypto industry, including the exchanges Coinbase, Kraken, and Crypto.com, as well as VC firms Andreessen Horowitz, Paradigm, and Dragonfly. The list continues with Uniswap Labs, Polygon Labs, and Consensys (one of 22 investors in an editorially independent Decrypt), among others.

🚨NEW: Today, the DeFi Education Fund is proud to publish a coalition letter of industry leaders & advocates calling on Congress to correct, what in our collective view, is the DOJ’s dangerous misinterpretation of money transmission laws.

A thread 🧵⤵️https://t.co/ZbcifAzbj8 pic.twitter.com/AqhHDCjGc3

— DeFi Education Fund (@fund_defi) March 26, 2025

“The DeFi Education Fund’s number one policy priority is obtaining Congressional clarity on Section 1960,” which has been misused by the DOJ to enact “regulation by criminal indictment,” Amanda Tuminelli, DeFi Education Fund executive director and chief legal officer, told Decrypt.

One of the most timely examples of the “money transmitter” definition being used by the DOJ is the ongoing prosecution of Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm. He was arrested on money laundering charges.

In the case, the DOJ has underscored Tornado Cash’s use by state-sponsored hackers as a threat, while crypto advocates like the DEF have rallied around Storm, saying the code he wrote is protected under freedom of speech. But Judge Katherine Polk Failla ruled that the case would proceed because of the statutes under which Storm was charged.

“These laws do not target protected expressive conduct,” Failla said of the laws Storm allegedly violated in launching and maintaining Tornado Cash. “They punish money laundering, [...] the operation of an unlicensed money transmitting business, and [...] sanctions evasion.”

DEF wrote in its letter that Section 1960 is one of two pieces of U.S. legal code that defines a “money transmitting business.” It’s designed to be the “enforcement mechanism” that criminalizes operating an unlicensed money transmitter, the letter says. In Section 5330, where the definition of “who” should be licensed as a money transmitting business can be found, the definition is "substantively identical” to Section 1960, the DEF argues.