Tornado Cash Case Reaches Partial Settlement: Guilty of Operating Unlicensed Money Transmittal Business

BlockBeats News, August 7th, a partial settlement was reached in the case of Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm: the charge of operating an unlicensed money transmission business was established, the money laundering conspiracy charge is still pending judgment, and the third charge of "sanctions violation" was acquitted. Roman Storm stood trial in the Southern District of New York Federal Court, and this case will set a legal precedent on how much responsibility developers should bear when their created decentralized software is unlawfully used.

In 2023, the U.S. prosecutors charged Storm with money laundering conspiracy, violating U.S. sanctions, and operating an unlicensed money transmission business. Prosecutors claimed that Tornado Cash facilitated over $1 billion in money laundering transactions and laundered millions of dollars for the sanctioned North Korean hacker group Lazarus Group.

The prevailing view in the crypto community has always been that technology is neutral. Storm also received support from Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, who previously stated, "Storm to a large extent built Tornado based on my suggestion, i.e., it's something worth building, and so if I didn't support you at your time of need, that would be a betrayal of basic human values. In Ethereum, we protect our own, uphold our values."