Roman Storm, developer of the privacy-preserving Tornado Cash protocol, asked the open source software community if they are concerned about retroactive prosecution by the US Department of Justice for the development of decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms.
Storm asked DeFi developers: “How can you be so sure that the DOJ won’t charge you a money services business to build a non-custodial protocol?”
The DOJ could prosecute the case, arguing that any decentralized non-custodial agency should have been developed as a custodial agency, as was the case against him, Storm added, citing his recent motion for acquittal, which was filed September 30.
“Our company has absolutely no ability to influence any change or take any action regarding the Tornado Cash protocol — it’s a decentralized software protocol that no one can control,” Storm said in the acquittal. documents.
Storm was convicted in August on one of three counts; a jury found him guilty of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmission business, setting a dangerous legal precedent for open source software developers and sending shockwaves through the crypto community.
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The fight for privacy continues
After the verdict, legal experts debated whether U.S. prosecutors would pursue money laundering charges and sanctions against Storm in another trial.
The jury was deadlocked during deliberations and failed to reach a unanimous consensus on those counts, finding Storm guilty only of the charge of unlicensed money transmission.
“If the Trump administration wants the US to be the crypto capital of the world, then the DOJ must not be allowed to retry two deadlocked charges,” Jake Chervinsky, chief legal officer at venture capital firm Variant Fund, wrote on X at the time.
Matthew Galeotti, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the DOJ’s Criminal Division, signaled in August that the DOJ would not seek a retrial for Storm and would not prosecute similar cases.
“Our position is that just writing code, without malicious intent, is not a crime,” Galeotti told audience at the American Innovation Project Summit, an event for regulatory advocacy and pro-crypto legislation in the US.
“The department will not use indictments as a tool to make laws. The department should not leave innovators guessing as to what could lead to prosecution,” he added.
Magazine: Can Privacy Survive in US Crypto Politics After the Roman Storm Verdict?
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