Tornado Cash Co-founder Fights to Void Sole Conviction
The post Tornado Cash Co-founder Fights to Void Sole Conviction appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.
Roman Storm, co-founder of Tornado Cash, has asked a US federal judge to acquit him of his sole conviction for unlicensed money transmission and the jury’s hung counts for money laundering and sanctions violations, arguing prosecutors failed to prove he intended to help bad actors misuse the crypto mixer. According to legal documents filed on Sept. 30 to the US District Court for the Southern District of New York and reviewed by Cointelegraph, Storm’s defense argued prosecutors failed to prove he intended to help bad actors use Tornado Cash. This, according to the defense, would nullify the grounds for his conviction based on negligent inaction. “Storm and bad actors was a claim that he knew they were using Tornado Cash and failed to take sufficient measures to stop them. This is a negligence theory,” the motion states. The defense further claims that “lacking affirmative evidence that Mr. Storm acted with the intent to assist bad actors, ”the government attempted to meet its willfulness burden by claiming that the defendant failed to prevent misuse. “It is a claim that is antithetical to the willfulness standard and unsupported by the law,” the motion states. Tornado Cash website. Source: Tornado.Cash A motion for acquittal asks the judge to throw out charges or a verdict because the prosecution’s evidence, even if taken as true, is legally insufficient. Related: Ethereum Foundation introduces ‘Privacy Stewards for Ethereum’ and roadmap Fighting for the right to privacy Tornado Cash is a decentralized and non-custodial smart contract-based Ether (ETH) mixer that leverages zero-knowledge proof-based encryption to enhance transaction privacy. It was launched by Roman Storm and Roman Semenov in 2019 and allows users to break the onchain traceability of their ETH. The service ended up in legal trouble primarily because it was allegedly used to launder billions of dollars…
Filed under: News - @ October 2, 2025 1:23 am