Privacy Takes Center Stage in Closing Arguments at Tornado Cash Developer Roman Storm’s Trial

Developer Roman Storm created coin mixer Tornado Cash not to champion Cypherpunk principles like privacy but to “make bags and bags of money,” U.S. prosecutors said Wednesday during a criminal trial in New York. 

“The business was privacy for criminals,” federal prosecutor Benjamin Gianforti said in closing arguments, pointing to evidence that criminals had laundered stolen funds through the decentralized, non-custodial privacy protocol he had built back in 2019.

Storm’s lawyers argued to the jury that their client never intended for hackers to use Tornado Cash, adding that the protocol was designed to enable ordinary people to send and receive funds privately.

Mixers, such as Tornado Cash, enhance transaction privacy by obscuring the links between crypto senders and recipients, typically by pooling and redistributing funds with others.

“Nothing [Storm and his team] were doing was a panacea,” defense lawyer David Patton said, referring to Tornado Cash’s transaction-anonymizing features. “If you’re gonna have a privacy protocol, that’s part of it.” 

Federal prosecutors dismissed the defense’s focus on privacy rights as a convenient “cover story,” however. 

“The real money wasn’t in so-called ‘privacy’ for normal people,” Gianforti said. “It was in hiding dirty money for criminals.”

The closing arguments capped a nearly three-week-long case that included expert and witness testimonies from blockchain technology experts, hackers, and victims of scams, as well as a litany of private messages between Storm and his Tornado Cash co-founders.

The crypto community largely views the case as a referendum on coders’ rights. 

A “guilty” verdict could set a precedent for holding software developers liable for the ways in which their software is used—an outcome Storm’s supporters argue would stifle innovation in the U.S.

Storm has pleaded not guilty to three charges, including conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to commit sanctions violations, and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. 

He faces a maximum prison sentence of more than 40 years if convicted on all counts. 

Twelve jurors went into deliberations early Thursday evening to mull over lawyers’ arguments and the trove of evidence presented at trial. But, just minutes after that process began, the group called it quits for the day. 

The jury will reconvene on Thursday to work towards a verdict. Their decision may come as early as Thursday.

There is no time limit for jury deliberations in the U.S., and some juries have deliberated for several months before reaching a final verdict.