Key Takeaways
Roman Storm was found guilty of operating Tornado Cash as an unlicensed money transmitting business processing over $1 billion in illicit transactions.
Prosecutors said he could’ve stopped criminals from using the mixer, but didn’t.
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Roman Storm, builder of Tornado Cash, one of crypto’s most prominent privacy mixers, was found guilty of conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business that processed over $1 billion in illicit funds, the Southern District of New York (SDNY) said in a Wednesday press release.
Storm, however, has dodged the bigger charges – money laundering and sanctions violations. The jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict on those counts, resulting in a partial mistrial.
While prosecutors could seek a retrial on the unresolved charges, no decision has been announced. For now, Storm faces a maximum sentence of five years for the conviction of conspiring to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business.
The verdict came after a four-week jury trial before US District Judge Katherine Polk Failla.
Evidence presented at trial showed Storm was one of three Tornado Cash founders who developed the platform’s core functionality, financed key infrastructure, and promoted the mixer. They collected more than $12 million in profits from operating the unlicensed business.
Prosecutors said Storm kept Tornado Cash running even after becoming aware it was processing criminal funds, including a nine-figure sum from the Ronin hack, which the FBI linked to North Korea’s Lazarus Group.
“The speed, efficiency, and functionality of stablecoins and other digital assets offer great promise, but that promise cannot be an excuse for criminality,” said US Attorney Jay Clayton, who led the prosecution, in a statement.
Sad day for DeFi
Storm’s conviction is a shot across the bow for developers working on privacy tools and open-source crypto infrastructure. Many in the crypto community expressed disappointment over the court’s decision, warning that the case sets a troubling precedent for the future of decentralized finance.
Jake Chervinsky, Chief Legal Officer at Variant, called it “a sad day for DeFi.” He believes the Feds should never have brought the case in the first place. More importantly, the legal expert said the Department of Justice (DOJ) can choose to bring the two unresolved charges back to court.
“Section 1960 should not apply to the developer of a non-custodial protocol who lacks control of user funds. This case should go up on appeal. Hopefully, the Second Circuit will correct this (and many other) errors in the case,” Chervinsky stated.
“This is a terrible outcome for Roman and for all of crypto. If the Trump administration wants the USA to be the crypto capital of the world, then DOJ must not be allowed to retry the two deadlocked charges,” he added.
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