Michael Lewellen has filed his opening brief in the Fifth Circuit, arguing that software developers like him face a credible threat of prosecution for unlicensed money transmission and deserve a ruling on the merits about the limits of such prosecutions.

You may recall that Lewellen sued the government for ruling on whether his app (the shitcoin version of Geyser) would classify him as a money transmitter, claiming that the government was creating a chilling effect around development in "digital assets" - #1460199.

The judge dismissed the case.

Now, Lewellen's appeal is being heard by the Fifth Crcuit:

His brief explains his non-custodial crowdfunding software, his well-founded fear of publishing, maintaining, hosting, and marketing that software in light of SDNY’s prosecutions, and why the steps taken so far by the administration are woefully inadequate. The Blanche memo, while directionally correct, offers no binding interpretation of what the law means or where its limits lie, and DOJ has repeatedly refused to admit that non-custodial software development is not a crime.

Michael is calling for a pre-enforcement judgment on whether he needs a license to publish his tools, and rightly so. As the brief argues, “A society founded on the rule of law does not want individuals to ‘bet the farm’ by breaking the law first and vindicating their rights second.”

It would be interesting if Coin Center and Lewellen were able to get the courts to force the government to draw a line in the sand somewhere.