Phoenix Wallet suspends services for US users due to regulatory uncertainty

Phoenix Wallet, a Bitcoin (BTC) wallet designed specifically for lightning payments, has announced that it will stop providing services to U.S. residents on May 3.

Source: Phoenix Wallet Tweet

ACINQ, the company behind Phoenix Wallet, plans to remove the app from the US App Store, meaning that from that date, US users will no longer be able to access it.

The company has urged its customers in the United States to withdraw their funds immediately. However, the company also reminds customers not to forcefully close their wallet applications as this may result in them paying higher blockchain transaction fees.

In the meantime, the company is calling on its iOS users in the United States to go to the Wallet app's settings page and select and tap the "Empty Wallet" option. For Android users, the company recommends that they should also enter the wallet's settings interface and select the "Close Channel" command, which can safely clear the funds in the wallet.

Although the official has not yet stated the specific reason for removing the wallet from the US App Store, ACINQ hinted in a tweet that some recent statements by the US government have cast doubt on the self-hosted wallets, Lightning Network service providers, and even Lightning Network nodes. Is it possible to be classified as a money services business and therefore regulated.

The company’s decision to remove the wallet app comes after legal action was taken against the founder of the Samourai Bitcoin hybrid wallet. This move suggests that legal action against the founder of Samourai Wallet may have been one of the factors that prompted the company to make this decision.

On April 24, federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York announced that they had filed a lawsuit against the founders of Samourai Wallet, Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill.

Rodriguez and Hill are accused of facilitating illegal transactions through the Samourai Wallet, according to the indictment. Rodriguez could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted, while Hill could face up to five years in prison if found guilty.

The U.S. Department of Justice accused the creator of the Samourai wallet of allowing more than $2 billion in illegal transactions through the platform and collecting more than $4.5 million in fees since 2015. The Justice Department also claims that Samourai was promoted as a tool to resist censorship and promote illegal activity.

Rodriguez’s arrest comes with an FBI warning to users involved in the “operations” of unregistered crypto companies considered money services businesses. The crackdown follows a pattern of U.S. authorities targeting wallets and mixers they believe to be responsible for suspicious activity.

The indictments sparked a backlash in the cryptocurrency community, with CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju defending Rodriguez and Hill, arguing that privacy protection is a fundamental attribute of Bitcoin.

Ki Young Ju compared the situation to punishing the inventor of the knife rather than punishing the person who misuses it, emphasizing that the intention behind using a tool determines its legality. According to him, if a tool itself is designed for a legitimate purpose, then it is those who misuse the tool for illegal activities, not the creator of the tool, who should be held accountable.

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