An American cryptocurrency researcher currently serving time in prison for helping North Korea evade sanctions has requested to be resentenced following the amendment of guidelines, which could see him released a year early.

Virgil Griffith, who formerly headed the Ethereum Foundation, made the plea via his attorneys on Wednesday in a letter to Judge P. Kevin Castel of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. 

Griffith was sentenced to 63 months in prison and ordered to pay a $100,000 fine in April 2022 after pleading guilty to charges of conspiracy to violate U.S. sanctionsagainst North