Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.
GM!
Today’s top news:
Crypto majors soar on 401(k) and BOE rate cut news; ETH & SOL lead
Trump to sign Executive Order today allowing crypto in 401(k)s
Tom Lee calls for $16,000 ETH + 5-10% crypto portfolio allocation
Roman Storm found guilty on 1 count in split jury, retrial likely to come
Art Blocks introduced ‘Art Blocks 500’ closing its first chapter
⚖️ Tornado Cash Developer Found Guilty (Partially)
Leaving reasons to be optimistic about the future.
📌 What Happened
That guilty charge was for operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business, but the jury was deadlocked on the more serious charges of money laundering and sanctions violations.
🚨NEW: SDNY Acting U.S. Attorney (and former @SECGov Chair) Jay Clayton issued a statement following Roman Storm’s conviction, praising the prosecution team after securing a guilty verdict for operating an unlicensed money transmitting business.
Storm was accused by the DOJ of enabling North Korea’s Lazarus Group to launder over $1B through Tornado Cash. Prosecutors claimed he knew the risks and “looked the other way.”
But the jury didn’t buy that narrative, refusing to convict on the headline charges.
He now faces sentencing for the one guilty count.
Notably, Judge Failla denied the motion to remand him to jail, declaring:
“There is a lot of fighting left in this case before sentencing, and I think Mr. Storm will stay to fight it.”
🗣️ What They’re Saying
“It’s a big win. The ‘1960’ charge is bullshit and we’re going to fight it all the way. You know how President Trump said ‘fight, fight, fight’? We’ll do that too.” – Roman Storm
“Roman Storm was convicted for conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business under Section 1960. The jury was deadlocked on money laundering and sanctions. DOJ will decide in the coming days if it wants to retry those charges in a new trial. A sad day for DeFi.” – Jake Chervinsky, crypto legal expert
🧠 Why It Matters
This is the first time a U.S. court has criminally convicted a crypto developer simply for writing code that enables privacy.
It sets a precedent, though a limited one.
The jury’s refusal to convict on sanctions and laundering shows the legal system isn’t fully on board with the idea that developers are responsible for how others use their tools.
Still, this guilty verdict sends a signal to open-source devs working on financial privacy that although the US is embracing crypto, there will be lines drawn in the sand.
But there is hope for those who believe Roman Storm should not be found guilty.
There will be a retrial and likely appeals after that, and pending how much progress has been made in the US on Project Crypto (especially with respect to dev rights), the environment may be very different.
Don’t count Roman out just yet…
🌎 Macro Crypto and Memes
A few Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:
Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm was found guilty on Wednesday, convicted on one count of operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business
The State of Michigan pension increased its Bitcoin ETF stake (ARK) to 300,000 shares (~$11.3M)
An Ex‑Apple engineer introduced the Payy card, a privacy-focused card which uses zero‑knowledge proofs and a private blockchain to conceal stablecoin transactions from public blockchains
In Corporate Treasuries
In Memes
Memecoin leadersare very green on the day; DOGE +6%, Shiba +4%, PEPE +5%, BONK +6%, PENGU +12%, TRUMP +3%, SPX +7%, and FARTCOIN +4%
The TROLL meme creator said he has no desire to pursue legal action against the memecoin which soared to $200M yesterday (TROLL -6% to $170M)
BOSS was the runner of the day, soaring 1,400% to $20M; LIZARD +100% to $10M and SWIF +300% to $3..7M were other notable movers
REKThit a new ATH at $560M market cap, now with a 6-day green streak
💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker
Magic Eden airdropped 10M $ME tokens yesterday for its Season 2 Rewards
🤖 AI x Crypto
Section dedicated to headlines in the AI sector of crypto:
Overall market cap up 5% to $10.9B, leaders were very green
BIOS (+200%), HEU (+60%) and AXR (+46%) led top movers
Trump Media’s Truth Social is now beta-testing “Truth Search AI,” an AI-powered search engine built with Perplexity
Pudgy Penguinsannounced a collab with Ava Studio to enable holders to make AI content more easily
🚚 What is happening in NFTs?
Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:
ETH NFT leaders were mostly green; Punks +1% at 52.2 ETH, Pudgy +2% at 14.2, BAYC -1% at 11.85 ETH
Meebits (+17%) and Memeland Captainz (+15%) led notable top movers
Bitcoin NFTs were mostly red or even; Quantum Cats +4%
Abstract NFTs were mostly red; Bearyz +12% led
Art Blocksintroduced ‘Art Blocks 500’ as the complete collection of the first 500 projects published on their platform, meaning 5 more projects will be minted (2 Curated, 3 Explorations) to complete the collection (future plans TBD)
Art Blocks is “putting a glass case” around its first 500 projects
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