Tornado Cash Developer Roman Storm Will Not Take the Stand, Lawyers Say

15 hours ago

NEW YORK — Roman Storm, the Tornado Cash developer lasting proceedings successful Manhattan connected charges that the privateness instrumentality helium created helped hackers and different cyber criminals launder much than $1 cardinal successful transgression proceeds, won't instrumentality the stand, his lawyers told the tribunal connected Tuesday.

Storm told District Judge Katherine Polk Failla of the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York (SDNY) that helium was alert that helium had the close to attest successful his ain defence but chose not to. After Storm made his decision, his defence team, led by Keri Axel and Brian Klein of Waymaker LLP, rested their lawsuit connected Tuesday afternoon.

Over 3 days of witnesser testimony, the defence argued that Storm was simply the developer of a morganatic privateness instrumentality that was sometimes exploited by atrocious actors – thing which helium and his co-founders could bash small to really stop, due to the fact that the Tornado Cash protocol and its pools were immutable. While Storm and the different Tornado Cash co-founders made wealth from the merchantability of TORN tokens, they didn’t nett straight from Tornado Cash, witnesses testified. And, though prosecutors attempted to represent Storm and his co-founders arsenic indifferent — adjacent callous — to the plight of hack victims whose wealth was laundered done Tornado Cash, witnesser testimony, radical chats and messages showed that Storm and his co-founders were unhappy with hackers utilizing their platform.

In messages betwixt Storm and his co-founder, Roman Semenov (who besides faces the aforesaid charges and remains astatine large), Storm expressed interest successful the aftermath of large hacks, including the 2022 hack of Ronin Bridge, successful which North Korean hackers stole $600 cardinal and funneled a information of the proceeds done Tornado Cash. In the chat, Storm and Semenov discussed adding the hackers’ wallet to the Tornado Cash idiosyncratic interface’s blocked list.

“We urgently request to archer everyone we bash not privation these individuals to the front,” Storm told Semenov.

In different drawstring of messages pursuing the Ronin Bridge hack, Storm told Semenov that the hackers’ usage of Tornado Cash was “very serious.”

After the 2022 hack of the Harmony Horizon Bridge, successful which immoderate proceeds flowed done Tornado Cash, Storm — messaging with Haseeb Qureshi, managing spouse astatine crypto task superior steadfast Dragonfly Capital that invested astir $1 cardinal successful Tornado Cash genitor PepperSec Inc. — said: “I’m gladsome those fuckers are detected.”

Value of privacy

Storm’s defence elicited witnesser grounds detailing non-criminal reasons wherefore idiosyncratic mightiness privation to usage a instrumentality similar Tornado Cash to abstracted their individuality from their fiscal transactions.

Dr. Matthew Green, renowned cryptography adept and prof of machine subject astatine Johns Hopkins University, told the assemblage connected Tuesday that the deficiency of privateness was a “bug” successful the bulk of cryptocurrencies, exposing users to threats from hackers and different attackers.

Green — who offered his adept witnesser services to Storm’s defence for escaped — explained that, without a instrumentality similar Tornado Cash, Ethereum users are exposing delicate idiosyncratic accusation with each transaction, including however overmuch wealth they have, what they walk it connected and who they subordinate with. This presents a scope of information risks, including phishing attempts, fraud and in-person “wrench attacks,” which Green explained person been “accelerating” successful caller years.

Next steps

Whether the assemblage volition broadside with the prosecution’s presumption of Tornado Cash oregon the defense’s has yet to beryllium decided.

Tomorrow, some sides volition person a accidental to summarize their arguments successful closing statements to the jury, aft which the assemblage volition beryllium instructed by the justice connected the charges against Storm and past released to deliberate.


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