Roman Storm, co-founder of Tornado Cash, has addressed the ongoing legal case against him after sanctions on the privacy-focused cryptocurrency platform were lifted.
Storm, who is currently facing charges that include conspiracy to commit money laundering and operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business, raised concerns about the prosecution’s wider effects on software developers and the technology industry.
Roman Storm Breaks Silence On Lifted Sanctions
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Roman Storm has stated that he is being prosecuted for writing open-source code that enables private, non-custodial cryptocurrency transactions. He pointed out that if his case were to be used as a precedent, it would pose a serious concern for software developers.
“This prosecution threatens to criminalize software development itself,” Storm’s legal counsel, Keri Axel, elaborated. Storm echoed the same sentiments saying that the charges against him could deter other people from developing software and innovating in various industries.
The charges follow from the fact that Tornado Cash was operating as a decentralized cryptocurrency tumbling service. The US government has accused the company of promoting unlawful activities such as money laundering and the evasion of sanctions. Storm, a Romanian lawyer, claims that Tornado Cash is a tool and each tool has potential usage, like many other software platforms, and developers cannot be prosecuted for misusing the tool by somebody.
Tornado Cash Co-Founder Legal Support
Roman Storm has been supported by various advocacy groups, including the DeFi Education Fund, Coin Center, and the Blockchain Association, which have filed amicus briefs in his defense.
These organizations stated that by banning Tornado Cash and going after its developers is a violation of open-source principles as well as individual rights to privacy.
As stated in the DeFi Education Fund’s documents, the US Treasury Department’s sanctions on Tornado Cash in 2022 were found to be unlawful in November 2023 by a Texas court. The Treasury had no right to sanction the platform, and the court pointed this out. However, the Department of Justice has dropped the ruling and has continued to retain charges against Storm and his co-founder Alexey Pertsev.
Vitalik Buterin’s Stance on Tornado Cash Lawsuit
According to Roman Storm, the current situation has already deterred developers from contributing to the creation of new and advanced software tools. He cited a case of another developer who had accused the prosecution of making them apprehensive of issuing new software.
This concern has been echoed among the tech and crypto enthusiasts. The most recent of them is the co-founder of Ethereum known as Vitalik Buterin who has recently come to defend Storm and others who are struggling through legal procedures, including the ETH developer Virgil Griffith and Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht. Buterin called on the US authorities to concentrate on the individuals who use the tools for criminal purposes rather than on the developers of the tools.
At the same time, American entrepreneur and politician Vivek Ramaswamy spoke about the charges brought against Storm:
“You cannot pursue the creators of code.” What you actually need to do is go after individual bad actors who are breaking the laws that already exist.”
Amid this lawsuit update, Tornado Cash (TORN) price has surged in the last 24 hours with the price swaying between an intra-day high and low of $7.80 and $25.94, respectively. At press time, TORN price was trading at $20.81, a 160% surge from the support level.
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