With his criminal trial just weeks away, Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm is publicly defending himself, firmly denying any wrongdoing.
In a recent interview with Crypto in America, Storm claimed that the U.S. government is targeting him not for criminal actions, but simply for creating open-source software.
Storm faces three felony charges, including conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate U.S. sanctions laws. Federal prosecutors allege that Tornado Cash—a crypto privacy protocol developed by Storm and two others—was used to launder over $1 billion in illicit funds, including assets tied to North Korea’s notorious Lazarus Group.
Storm, however, insists he never knowingly aided any criminal activity. He maintains that Tornado Cash was designed to safeguard user privacy, and that once launched, the decentralized protocol functioned independently and beyond his control.
“I had no contact whatsoever with criminals, criminal organizations, illicit actors, or North Koreans,” he said. “We didn’t have control over what people did with the tool. If someone used it for something illegal, we couldn’t stop them.”
Roman Storm, co-founder of Tornado Cash, was arrested in August 2023 and now faces a high-stakes criminal trial set to begin on July 14 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. His case follows the conviction of fellow developer Alexey Pertsev, who was sentenced to 64 months in prison by a Dutch court for money laundering. The third co-founder, Roman Semenov, has also been charged but remains at large.
Since his arrest, Storm says he has lived under strict bail conditions—completely cut off from the financial system. “I have no bank accounts, no access to crypto wallets,” he said. “I’m being punished before being proven guilty.”
Storm argues that the case against him goes beyond his personal freedom, warning that its outcome could have sweeping implications for developers and the future of open-source innovation in the crypto space. “If I lose my case, DeFi dies with me,” he declared, emphasizing that criminalizing developers for writing code sets a dangerous precedent.
While Storm has kept key elements of his defense strategy private—including whether he’ll take the stand—he revealed that his legal team will argue that writing code is a form of free speech and that developing open-source tools is not a crime, even if those tools are later misused by others.
Support for Storm has steadily grown in the crypto community. Notably, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has publicly backed him and contributed to his legal defense fund.
