TL;DR Breakdown
- Virgil Griffith is undergoing an investigation because of falsifying US laws.
- He is accused of the speech he made Pyongyang Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Conference.
- The speech that he made mentioned a way using which any individual can bypass US Sanctions using crypto tech.
- For this reason, the prosecutors wrote, to the judge in charge, to put Virgil Griffith back in jail.
Virgil Griffith, the well-known programmer behind the Ethereum cryptocurrency has been accused of breaking sensitive laws on North Korean soil. For this reason, he is not allowed to leave the country giving rise to restrictions in movements.
The developer behind Ethereum tried to access his frozen funds in cryptocurrency accounts and for this reason, the prosecutors consider him a grave flight risk, i.e., they think that Virgil Griffith is trying to flee.
When he tried to access his funds from the frozen account, the prosecutors deemed it as a violation of the terms of his bail and therefore, they wrote to the judge who is in charge of the case that it is imperative to send Virgil Griffith back to jail.
Virgil Griffith back to jail?
According to the prosecutors, it is a necessity to put Virgil Griffith back to jail as he has violated the terms of his bail by trying to access the $1 million in his frozen accounts and they think that it’s possible that Griffith might flee.
Griffith’s lawyers have told that he was under the protection of the First Amendment of the US Constitution and that he didn’t break any law. As for the ‘services’ that he was accused of providing to the North Koreans, Griffith has told that there wasn’t any ‘service’ since he did not receive any money for the speech.
The head of MorrisonCohen’s White Collar and Regulatory Enforcement group, Jason Gottlieb came out in support of the Ethereum developer criticizing the demands and accusations of the prosecutors.