With his criminal trial fast approaching, Roman Storm, co-founder of the crypto mixing service Tornado Cash, has come forward to deny any wrongdoing, insisting that he is being prosecuted simply for writing open-source code.
Speaking in a recent interview with Crypto in America, Storm argued that the U.S. government’s case against him is fundamentally flawed. He said the U.S. government is prosecuting him for writing open-source code, not for any actual criminal conduct.
“When Tornado Cash became fully decentralized and trustless, there wasn’t much activity going on at that time. We thought it was just going to be another project that would sit in our junkyard. We have so many projects like that as software engineers. We did not anticipate that.… pic.twitter.com/7fiurmkojn
— Roman Storm ???????? ????️ (@rstormsf) July 4, 2025
Storm is facing three felony charges, including conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate U.S. sanctions laws. Prosecutors allege that Tornado Cash was used to launder over $1 billion in illicit funds, some tied to North Korea’s state-sponsored hacker group Lazarus. However, Storm maintains he never knowingly facilitated criminal activity.
Storm was arrested in August 2023. His fellow developer, Alexey Pertsev, was convicted of money laundering in the Netherlands last year and sentenced to 64 months in prison. Tornado Cash’s third co-founder, Roman Semenov, is also facing U.S. charges but remains at large.
Since his arrest, Storm has been under strict bail conditions, barred from accessing bank accounts or crypto wallets.
“I’m being punished before even proven guilty,”
he said.
Looking ahead to his July 14 trial at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Storm warned of the wider implications his case holds for the crypto industry. “If I lose this case, DeFi dies with me,” he said, arguing that treating developers as criminals for writing open-source code sets a dangerous precedent that could stifle innovation in decentralized finance.
While Storm has kept details of his legal strategy private, he hinted that his defence team will argue that writing code is protected under free speech and creating tools that bad actors can misuse is not a crime.
Meanwhile, the Ethereum Foundation (EF) contributed $1.25 million to assist Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev in his legal battle as he prepares to appeal his money laundering conviction in the Netherlands.
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