Tornado Cash Co-Founder Trial Delayed to April 2025

In Brief:

Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm's trial for money laundering and sanctions violations has been postponed to April 2025, following a court order by Judge Katherine Polk Failla.

Storm, free on a $2-million bond, faces charges alongside co-founder Roman Semenov, who remains at large, as the legal proceedings continue amid industry controversy.

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Tornado Cash Co-Founder Trial Delayed to April 2025

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The trial of Roman Storm, Tornado Cash co-founder, on charges of money laundering and sanctions violations has been postponed until April 2025. During a telephone conference on November 1, Judge Katherine Polk Failla of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York ordered the trial to commence on April 14, 2025.

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Storm's legal team has been actively seeking to dismiss the charges, arguing that they stem solely from his role in writing code for the cryptocurrency mixing service. The charges against Storm, filed in 2023, include conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to commit sanctions violations, and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business. These legal actions have sparked significant backlash within the crypto community.

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Sanctions and Legal Proceedings

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The charges followed the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control adding Tornado Cash to its Specially Designated Nationals list in August 2022. The department accused the service of failing to prevent the laundering of funds for malicious cyber actors. Roman Semenov, Storm's co-founder, is not in U.S. custody and remains on the FBI's most wanted list.

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Storm, who is free on a $2-million bond, has pleaded not guilty to all charges. In a related case, Tornado Cash co-founder Alexey Pertsev was arrested in the Netherlands for money laundering in 2022 and sentenced to over five years in prison in May 2024.

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