Five Years Sentence For Teaching People How To Use Cryptocurrency

Imagine getting arrested because you talked about cryptocurrency with some certain people. That’s how it seems like on the surface but it’s deeper than that, the U.S government had something deeper attached to that act.

Most of us must have heard the story of Virgil Griffith, the man who got arrested in 2019 for telling a bunch of people in North Korea about cryptocurrency. While this seemed like a friendly act, the U.S government probably saw it as a threat. Cryptocurrency is a very powerful asset and tool, which can be used for both good and evil. During its early stage, lots of people tagged crypto as a tool for causing more harm than good. We are on Leofinance right here everyday sharing information about crypto freely, not knowing that some one can actually get jailed for educating certain people about crypto.

I heard about Virgil Griffith for the first time in 2021 when he was on trial, after reading the headline my mind was blown. Actually it’s way deeper than that, apparently the U.S government never supported his visit to North Korea to attend a crypto conference to teach them how to use cryptocurrency. He wasn’t granted permission, so he went to North Korea arrogantly and taught these citizens about cryptocurrency and how to use it.

According to the U.S government that act was seen as a way of teaching these citizens how to evade the United sanctions using cryptocurrencies. This was a violation on the sanctions placed on the citizens thereby seeing it as a threat fabricated as conspiracy to violate The international Emergency Economic Powers Act. This caused his 5 years jail sentence and a $100,000 fine.

In 2021 he got support from some of the crypto community especially from Vitalik Buterin who tried their best to create awareness through Twitter asking that he got freed. Well, he must have gotten legal advice from his lawyers to plead guilty, and take the 5 years sentence with a $100,000 fine.