Judge Katherine Polk Failla has pushed the Roman Storm trial to April 26, 2027. A conviction on the two open counts could cost the Tornado Cash co-founder up to 40 years in prison.
Tornado Cash is a decentralized mixing service on Ethereum. A shared pool bundles the deposits of many users. As a result, that pool cuts the link between the deposit address and the payout address. Storm was part of the protocol's developer team. The protocol's contracts became immutable at launch. In August 2022, OFAC, the sanctions office of the US Treasury, added the service to its sanctions list. A year later, the Justice Department indicted Storm. In August 2025, the jury convicted him on one count. On the two heavier charges, though, it stayed split. The new date replaces the October 2026 start that the Justice Department had requested. For the criminal liability of open-source developers, the case sets the direction in the US.
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Why the Roman Storm trial is delayed again
The delay has a procedural background. In late September 2025, Storm's defense filed a motion under Rule 29. That rule lets the court set aside a jury conviction after the verdict. In their view, the evidence presented does not carry the conviction. Failla first heard oral argument on it in April 2026. A decision is still pending. As long as the motion sits open, the standing of the existing conviction remains unclear. So a second trial would be premature.
Originally, the retrial should have started as early as 2026. In March 2026, the Justice Department asked for October 5 or October 12, 2026 as the start date. Failla instead set April 26, 2027. She scheduled the final pretrial conference for April 20, 2027. More than 20 months therefore separate the jury's partial verdict from the new trial date.
In April 2026, the defense also pointed to a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruling from March 2026. The decision dealt with an internet provider's liability for copyright infringement by its users. Mere knowledge does not suffice, the justices held. A provider is liable only when it intends the infringing use. For example, that intent follows from inducement or from a service built for infringement. Storm's attorneys read the ruling as a precedent argument for their own case. Whether Failla follows it will become clear only with her decision on the acquittal motion.
Up to 40 years in prison are at stake on the open counts
In August 2025, the jury convicted Storm of conspiracy to run an unlicensed money transmitting business. That term covers services that move money for third parties without registering for it. The relevant statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1960, sets a maximum of five years in prison. On the two remaining counts, however, the jurors found no consensus. And yet exactly those two weigh far more heavily.
One charge is conspiracy to commit money laundering. The other is conspiracy to violate IEEPA sanctions. IEEPA is the US law for economic sanctions in national emergencies. Each of these counts carries a maximum penalty of 20 years. As a result, the retrial puts up to 40 years in prison on the table. In other words, that is eight times the sentencing range of the count already decided. According to the indictment, Tornado Cash enabled the laundering of more than USD 1 billion in illicit funds.
Storm himself reads the case as an attempt to make an example of him. The SDNY nevertheless sticks to both open counts.
"Prosecutors are supposed to protect American interests and go after people who broke the law. The jury could not agree on the two most serious counts against me. And still the SDNY does not stop, because this case was never only about me. It is about making an example." - Roman Storm, co-founder of Tornado Cash
Chainalysis ran a Tornado Cash relayer itself
Alongside the new date, Storm raised an accusation against Chainalysis on X. The US firm works in blockchain forensics and also sells authorities software for tracking crypto transactions. Such evaluations aim to link blockchain addresses to real people. Its analyses supported the case against Storm. Now he questions that very role.
According to court filings, the company ran its own Tornado Cash relayer in 2022. Relayers handle withdrawals from the mixer on behalf of users and charge a fee for it. Consequently, they earn from every single payout. Chainalysis also made money from the service it later prepared forensically for investigators. So far, the dual role has brought the company no publicly known consequences.
Storm says the conflict runs deeper. He writes that SDNY prosecutors spoke by phone with Chainalysis lawyers on the eve of a witness testimony. He adds that the Chainalysis witness later invoked the Fifth Amendment. However, these details come solely from Storm's own post. Furthermore, no independent source has verified the docket entries he cites. To date, Chainalysis has issued no public statement on the allegations. Storm is therefore aiming at the credibility of the evidence source the prosecution rests on.
The policy shift on crypto mixers does not reach Storm's case
The basis for the sanctions against Tornado Cash fell away long ago. In November 2024, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decided Van Loon v. Department of the Treasury. The court held that the protocol's immutable smart contracts are not "property" under the statute. Therefore the sanctions office cannot block them. Shortly after, OFAC lifted the sanctions in March 2025. The Justice Department then instructed its prosecutors to end the targeted pursuit of crypto mixers. But the ruling touched only the sanctions list, not the criminal charges.
Still, the policy shift had no effect on the criminal case. The jury did not convict Storm of sanctions violations. Moreover, the civil sanctions question runs separately from the criminal proceedings. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel weighed in during April 2026. Both spoke by video to the Bitcoin 2026 conference in Las Vegas. Their conversation ran under the title "Code is Free Speech: Ending the War on Bitcoin". Blanche said there that the Justice Department and the FBI no longer target developers. Instead, they go after users who commit financial crimes. He called Storm's case a "lingering case" that still has to be handled.
In Europe, the comparable case runs under different conditions. In May 2024, a Dutch court sentenced Tornado Cash co-founder Alexey Pertsev for money laundering. He received 64 months in prison. Dutch investigators put the laundered sum at roughly USD 1.2 billion. Storm's indictment names more than USD 1 billion. Pertsev appealed. The Dutch judiciary builds on money laundering, while the SDNY relies on unlicensed money transmitting and sanctions law. The EU's MiCA regulation likewise lacks an explicit rule on criminal developer liability. For that reason, the Pertsev case remains the decisive European test case. US courts will not settle before April 2027 whether open-source code makes its authors criminally liable.
