DeFi Education Fund urges Trump to “discontinue” DOJ’s Tornado Cash case against Roman Storm
The DeFi Training Fund, a analysis and advocacy group, has petitioned the Trump administration to intervene within the prosecution of Roman Storm, the Twister Money co-founder dealing with felony prices.
In response to an April 28 letter directed to White Home crypto czar David Sacks, the group urged President Trump to “take speedy motion to discontinue the Biden-era Division of Justice’s lawless marketing campaign to criminalize open-source software program improvement.”
They argued that Storm’s case is a part of a broader overreach that “threatens the very basis of technological innovation” in america.
Storm, whom the U.S. Division of Justice charged in August 2023, has been accused of serving to launder over $1 billion by way of Twister Money, a preferred crypto mixing service.
He faces prices of conspiracy to facilitate cash laundering, conspiracy to function an unlicensed cash transmitter, and violating U.S. sanctions, offenses that would carry a mixed sentence of as much as 45 years if convicted.
As beforehand reported by crypto.information, final 12 months Storm filed a movement to dismiss all prices, arguing that Twister Money was an immutable, open-source protocol past his management.
Nonetheless, U.S. District Choose Katherine Polk Failla denied the movement in September 2024, ruling that the indictment met the authorized threshold to proceed to trial. A subsequent bid for reconsideration was additionally rejected in February 2025.
Of their letter, the DeFi Education Fund argued that the Division of Justice is pushing an “unprecedented concept” by trying to carry builders liable for a way others use their code, even after they have “no management over these third events or person belongings.”
They warned that if left unchecked, this authorized strategy “freezes” open-source improvement altogether.
The group additionally identified that Storm’s prosecution seems to contradict earlier Treasury Division guidance issued during Trump’s first term, which clarified that builders of self-custodial, peer-to-peer protocols should not thought-about cash transmitters beneath federal regulation.
“We within the blockchain business have relied on that steerage in good religion since 2019,” the letter acknowledged.
Additional, the letter warned that past Storm’s particular person case, the DOJ’s actions create a authorized atmosphere that “empowers politically-motivated enforcement” and places each open-source developer in danger, no matter business.
“Nobody writing code in good religion ought to must worry prosecution for the actions of strangers,” the letter stated, arguing that innovation in fields like monetary know-how, synthetic intelligence, and even healthcare could possibly be stifled if builders are held liable for a way their instruments are used.
Attaining the objective of constructing America the “crypto capital of the planet,” they stated, requires defending the very builders who create the underlying know-how.
“We ask President Trump to guard American software program builders, restore authorized readability, and finish this illegal DOJ overreach,” the group wrote, including that the stakes “couldn’t be larger” for the way forward for crypto innovation within the U.S.
In the meantime, assist for the petition is rising, with greater than 253 signatures as of press time from varied business leaders, together with Ethereum core developer Tim Beiko, Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang, and Bankless co-founder Ryan Sean Adams.
