Withdrawing Your Own Money Should Never Be a Crime: The Crisis of Power Without Limits in the Crypto World

A disturbing phenomenon has emerged across cryptocurrency jurisdictions: citizens face criminal charges for accessing their own legally-held funds. This represents not merely a legal anomaly, but a fundamental failure of institutional restraint.

The Absurdity of Modern Law

The case that prompted this analysis involves a straightforward sequence of events: A retail investor’s account was frozen during virtual currency transactions in 2023. Twelve months passed. Finally, bank leadership approved the release. In April 2025, the funds were withdrawn. By May 2025, criminal charges were filed—for theft, no less.

The irony deserves emphasis: the bank itself authorized the unfreezing. The account holder operated with complete transparency. The money’s origin was documented and clear. Yet the narrative shifted retroactively: what was deemed approvable for withdrawal became, after withdrawal, “stolen property.”

This scenario would seem like dystopian fiction if it weren’t currently unfolding in 2025. How has legal reasoning deteriorated to a point where a citizen, following authorized procedures to reclaim their own money, can be prosecuted for theft?

When Virtual Currency Becomes a Legal Dumping Ground

Legally, theft requires intent and deception—“taking another person’s property with intent of illegal possession through secretive means.” None of these elements exist in this scenario.

Yet across crypto-related cases, enforcement agencies treat virtual currency involvement as a legal catch-all category. Funds clearly earned through legitimate work are unilaterally reclassified as “criminal proceeds.” Bank freezes persist for years without explanation or resolution. The principle of legality—that law enforcement acts only within legal boundaries—is treated as optional.

This isn’t localized dysfunction. Pattern analysis reveals systematic overreach:

• Accounts suspended indefinitely with no stated rationale
• Legitimate income administratively confiscated without due process
• “Better to wrongly arrest than allow escape” enforcement philosophies openly applied
• Regulatory charges filed first, evidence-gathering second

The message to ordinary citizens is clear and chilling: involvement with crypto creates a parallel legal universe where standard protections evaporate.

Unconstrained Power Becomes Dangerous

The deepest concern transcends this single case. When enforcement power operates without institutional checks—when agencies can contradict their own prior actions, reinterpret legal standards retroactively, and override administrative decisions—we witness power becoming unmoored from law.

Today’s weaponization of theft charges against account withdrawals establishes dangerous precedent. Tomorrow, money deposits might trigger money-laundering accusations. The pattern extends beyond finance: once power learns that legal constraints can be selectively ignored for one category of citizens or transactions, institutional restraint erodes across all domains.

Law enforcement officials choosing not to recognize bank-issued authorizations. Prosecutors approving charges lacking fundamental legal elements. The result: ordinary people cannot reliably predict whether their lawful actions will be prosecuted.

The Foundation That Must Hold

This isn’t alarmism; it’s observable reality. Effective regulation of the crypto sector has become urgent—not to restrict legitimate activity, but to establish clear boundaries. Without explicit legal frameworks defining permissible trading, legitimate regulatory authority, and precise enforcement boundaries, citizens face arbitrary prosecution.

More fundamentally, institutional structures must be rebuilt to prevent power abuse. “No action without legal authorization” cannot remain theoretical; it requires genuine mechanisms that function.

The involved parties are pursuing their case within available legal channels, hoping for acquittal while recognizing the deeper systemic failure at stake. Their individual outcome matters less than whether society recognizes what their case reveals: in rule-of-law systems, citizens must never face conviction for accessing their own funds.

This threshold—foundational to civilized governance—should require no elaborate defense. Yet here we are, fighting to establish it as reality.