Trial starts for Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm in New York

The criminal trial of Tornado Cash co-founder and developer Roman Storm began Monday in federal court in Manhattan, where jurors will weigh whether he knowingly helped launder more than $1 billion in cryptocurrency linked to cybercriminals, including North Korea’s Lazarus Group.

Storm, who co-developed the Ethereum-based privacy protocol, faces charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering, violating U.S. sanctions, and operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business. If convicted on all counts, he could face up to 45 years in prison. He has pleaded not guilty.

Tornado Cash is a decentralized, non-custodial mixing service that allows users to obscure the source and destination of crypto assets using zero-knowledge proofs. Prosecutors allege Storm and fellow co-founder Roman Semenov facilitated illicit transfers through the tool, citing evidence from the separate trial of developer Alexey Pertsev, who was recently convicted of money laundering in the Netherlands. Pertsev appealed the verdict.

Early arguments

Storm’s defense challenged the government’s interpretation of several digital communications, including a Telegram message allegedly referencing the laundering of $600 million stolen in the Ronin Bridge hack. The defense said the message was sent by a reporter and merely forwarded by a developer, not authored by Storm. Federal prosecutors previously apologized for submitting the original message without a forwarding label but urged the court to deny the defense’s motion to exclude the evidence.

Defense Attorneys also contested the admissibility of chat logs, text messages, and images obtained through subpoenas issued to Apple, X, and venture firm Dragonfly. Prosecutors argued that the materials qualify as business records and are therefore exempt from hearsay rules. Storm's lawyers argued that the content was private and should be axed.

Judge Katherine Polk Failla of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York was reportedly unconvinced of the defense's arguments on both challenges. The trial is expected to last four weeks.

Advocates of financial privacy and software freedom have rallied around Storm, raising over $1.9 million so far — including a $500,000 donation from the Ethereum Foundation — and filing amicus briefs in his defense. Proponents argue that his work on open-source code constitutes protected speech and that he had no control over users’ illicit transactions.

Prosecutors say otherwise, alleging Storm and his co‑developers ignored repeated red flags and that Tornado Cash operated like a business that should have enforced anti‑money‑laundering measures.

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