Legal Battle Over Tornado Cash Ends, Dev Trials Continue

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Legal Battle Over Tornado Cash Ends, Developer Trials Continue

Written by Aaron S.,

Editor-In-Chief

Last Updated: July 08, 2025

Key Takeaways

The US Treasury and Coin Center ended their legal fight after OFAC dropped Tornado Cash sanctions in March;
A US court approved dismissing the case, which avoided a ruling on sanctioning open-source code;
Despite the dropped case, Tornado Cash developers Roman Storm and Alexey Pertsev still face criminal charges.

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Legal Battle Over Tornado Cash Ends, Developer Trials Continue

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The US Treasury Department and the policy group Coin Center have decided to end their legal dispute over Tornado Cash, an Ethereum ETH $2,572.80 -based privacy tool.

The decision came after the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) reversed its 2022 sanctions against Tornado Cash in March.

According to a July 7 report by Bloomberg Law, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals approved a joint request from both sides to cancel the previous judgment and send the case back to be dismissed.

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Peter Van Valkenburgh, executive director at Coin Center, stated in a post on X that it marks "the official end to our court battle" and noted that the government chose not to defend an overly broad view of its authority to impose sanctions.

Coin Center had argued that targeting open-source code rather than individuals went beyond what the law allows.

Even though the Treasury backed away from its sanctions, Roman Storm, one of the developers, is still scheduled to go on trial on July 14 in New York.

He faces accusations of helping criminals use Tornado Cash to launder money and of failing to comply with anti-money laundering rules. If convicted, he could face a sentence of up to 45 years in prison.

In the Netherlands, another Tornado Cash developer, Alexey Pertsev, is appealing his 64-month prison sentence. He was convicted of money laundering in 2024 and released in February 2025 under supervision.

Meanwhile, on June 13, Paradigm, a cryptocurrency venture capital firm, submitted a legal brief in support of Roman Storm. What did the document say? Read the full story.