In August 2025 a New York jury found Roman Storm, a co-founder of the crypto mixer Tornado Cash, guilty of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business. After days of deliberation, the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict on the more serious money-laundering and sanctions-evasion charges.
Prosecutors said the service facilitated more than $1 billion in illicit proceeds, while Storm's defenders argued that writing privacy software is not the same as committing a crime.
Code, control and culpability
The partial verdict left one of crypto's thorniest questions unresolved: how much responsibility developers bear for how permissionless tools are used. The outcome carries significant implications for privacy-preserving DeFi and open-source software far beyond Tornado Cash.