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On this day, during the second day of the Tornado Cash trial<\/a>, the prosecution and defense presented contrasting narratives in their opening remarks regarding why the accused, Roman Storm, founded Tornado Cash.<\/p>\n SUMMARY OF DAY 2 OF TORNADO CASH TRIAL<\/p>\n The prosecution and defense provide opening remarks, and the first witness takes the stand\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/ZIKt3SE2ZP<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Frank Corva (@frankcorva) July 15, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n These remarks came after the jury selection process was finalized.<\/p>\n The jury is composed of seven women and five men; two jurors are in their 60s, four in their 40s, one in their 30s, and five in their 20s; eight possess undergraduate degrees, three hold high school diplomas, and one has a master’s degree.<\/p>\n The jury members took the stand shortly after 2:00 p.m. EST, immediately preceding the opening remarks from both sides.<\/p>\n The prosecution was the first to present its opening statement.<\/p>\n Mr. Mosley, representing the prosecution, addressed the jury and emphasized the idea that Storm established Tornado Cash primarily to benefit himself \u2014 even if that involved aiding in laundering \u201cdirty money.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Mosley asserted that hundreds of millions of dollars\u2019 worth of cryptocurrency had traversed through Tornado Cash, and that Storm, along with his associates, Roman Semenov and Alexey Pertsev<\/a>, could have made Tornado Cash less appealing to criminals but chose not to.<\/p>\n He also indicated how Tornado Cash enabled sanctions breaches, as North Korean hackers utilized the service to launder cryptocurrency assets.<\/p>\n He suggested that Storm was intrinsically guilty because he texted his co-founders in Tornado Cash saying \u201cGuys, we\u2019re done for\u201d when news emerged that North Korean hackers had employed Tornado Cash to mix the funds stolen from the hack of the online crypto game Axie Infinity<\/a> and also remarked upon Storm wearing a T-shirt with a washing machine and a Tornado Cash logo at a crypto conference. (The defense acknowledged in its statement that Storm’s choice of T-shirt was in \u201cpoor taste.\u201d)<\/p>\n Mr. Mosley claimed that evidence would reveal that Storm and his co-conspirators intentionally operated a crypto \u201cwashing machine\u201d to assist in laundering funds for wrongdoing and that it was incorrect to say that they were unable to modify the Tornado Cash design upon learning of its misuse by criminals, despite their claims to the contrary.<\/p>\n \u201cHe opted to launder money time and again,\u201d stated Mr. Mosley regarding Storm.<\/p>\n Furthermore, Mr. Mosley pointed out that Storm attempted to \u201cconceal his actions\u201d by cashing out millions using an account that wasn\u2019t his. (No specifics were provided on whether this was a bank or cryptocurrency exchange account.)<\/p>\n Lastly, Mr. Mosley indicated that the evidence would include encrypted conversations about the Tornado Cash operations; the defendants\u2019 interactions with victims of cryptocurrency hacks, the funds of which passed through Tornado Cash; and documents illustrating that Storm used another individual\u2019s account in August 2022 to cash out.<\/p>\n Following Mr. Mosley, Ms. Axel, a defense team member, addressed the jury.<\/p>\n She commenced by portraying Storm as a dedicated immigrant with a knack for programming, stating that he had been employed by several esteemed tech firms, including Amazon.<\/p>\n She conveyed that Storm established Tornado Cash to address the issue of financial privacy while conducting transactions on a public blockchain, asserting that he had no affiliation with any individuals who misused the service.<\/p>\n \u201cRoman had nothing to do with the hacks and scams the government discussed,\u201d stated Ms. Axel. \u201cMalicious actors exploited Tornado Cash to obscure their actions.\u201d<\/p>\n Ms. Axel mentioned how a conversation with Vitalik Buterin, the inventor of Ethereum (the blockchain supporting Tornado Cash), inspired him to develop Tornado Cash.<\/p>\n She recounted how Storm met Buterin at a conference and inquired about vital projects to pursue for Ethereum. According to Ms. Axel, Buterin informed Storm that solving transactional privacy was a significant issue. Storm subsequently began work on Tornado Cash.<\/p>\n Ms. Axel then guided the jury through a series of visuals that explained how Ethereum functions and how Tornado Cash anonymizes transactions within the network.<\/p>\n (While the defense presented this information clearly, it may still have left the jury members somewhat perplexed, as none reported having a background in technology.)<\/p>\n Ms. Axel emphasized that Tornado Cash never imposed fees for its service, though it had the potential to do so.<\/p>\n She added that even Buterin himself participated in a \u201ctrustless ceremony\u201d in May 2020 when the first Tornado Cash test pool was established.<\/p>\n She also noted that once the Tornado Cash mixing pools were initiated, Storm and his co-founders discarded the keys, preventing them from having any control over the pools’ activities.<\/p>\n \u201cThe government\u2019s argument hinges on the idea that Roman should have halted hackers from using the pools,\u201d declared Ms. Axel. \u201cBut he was incapable of doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n Ms. Axel concluded her opening statement by asserting that Tornado Cash was merely a tool utilized by both malicious and benevolent individuals \u2014 akin to WhatsApp, Signal, a VPN, or even a hammer.<\/p>\n Once the opening statements were concluded, the prosecution summoned its first witness, Ms. Lin, to the stand.<\/p>\n Ms. Lin described an incident where a scammer approached her through WhatsApp and subsequently LINE, convincing her to set up a Crypto.com<\/a> account and deposit over $200,000 into it.<\/p>\n The scammer guided Ms. Lin through the process of purchasing \u201ccrypto,\u201d as she described, before transferring that crypto to a shell firm named NTU Capital, where Ms. Lin observed her portfolio, which she noted increased in value shortly after her deposit.<\/p>\n The witness was dismissed prior to her or the prosecution finishing the story, but given the trial’s nature, one might speculate that the funds were taken from Ms. Lin and subsequently laundered through Tornado Cash to obscure their origin. (To clarify, the latter part of this sentence remains speculative.)<\/p>\n The trial is scheduled to reconvene tomorrow at 9 a.m. EST.<\/p>\n The prosecution informed the judge that it intends to call at least three additional witnesses to the stand tomorrow.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
The Prosecution’s Opening Statement<\/h2>\n
The Defense’s Opening Statement<\/h2>\n
The Initial Witness<\/h2>\n
Schedule for Tomorrow<\/h2>\n