Tornado Cash Co-Founder Roman Storm Prepares for Trial Amid Industry Support

Roman Storm, co-founder of the crypto mixing platform Tornado Cash, has spoken publicly as he prepares to face trial in less than two weeks in the United States. In a video interview released Wednesday by Crypto In America, Storm shared that his legal team plans to challenge allegations that he personally profited from illicit funds while working on the Tornado Cash project. Storm, however, remained non-committal about whether he would testify during the upcoming proceedings, stating, “This is the decision that we will make. I don’t have a 100% answer right now. I may or may not.” The U.S. government indicted Storm in 2023, a year after the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Tornado Cash addresses , accusing the service of enabling money laundering for North Korea’s Lazarus Group using stolen crypto assets. The charges against him include money laundering, conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business, and conspiracy to violate U.S. sanctions. Community Rallies Behind Storm’s Defense Storm’s legal battle has drawn widespread support from the crypto community, with many viewing the case as a pivotal moment for developer rights and privacy within decentralized finance. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, Paradigm founder Matt Huang, and the Ethereum Foundation have contributed to the co-founder’s legal defense, helping raise over $750,000 by late June. Despite the support, Storm described the personal toll the case has taken on him. “It’s so damaging. You believed in one thing, you believed there is common sense, there is a misunderstanding, and then you face these harsh things in your life,” he said, adding that he would need time to recover before returning to his work in the crypto space. Trial Set for July 14 in New York The trial is scheduled to begin on July 14 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, where the case is expected to test the legal boundaries of privacy tools within the crypto ecosystem and the responsibilities of developers building open-source protocols. While Storm awaits trial, Roman Semenov, another developer named in the same indictment, remains at large, while fellow co-founder Alexey Pertsev was convicted of money laundering in the Netherlands and sentenced to over five years in prison. The post Tornado Cash Co-Founder Roman Storm Prepares for Trial Amid Industry Support appeared first on TheCoinrise.com .

Source: The Coin Rise