Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm and the US Department of Justice were again in court on April 9, 2026 in order to look into whether a prior money transmitting conviction may be overlooked and thrown out this time. This past Thursday, in a US District Court for the Southern District of New York courtroom in Manhattan, presiding Judge Katherine Polk Failla heard arguments from both parties, especially pertaining to matters focused around if Storm should have actually blocked transactions or taken down Tornado Cash when he was aware that certain people were allegedly using it to launder funds and intentionally bypass sanctions.
Failla stated that the concerned parties need not to try to think too deeply about her queries, noting that if she had already decided what to do in this case, then there would not actually have been another hearing on this controversial matter.
Failla acknowledged that this is a lot to take in and absorb for anyone, and that she would now be reflecting on the arguments.
In August of 2025, Storm had been found guilty on potentially serious charges of unlawful money transmitting, however, the jury was unable to arrive at a decisive conclusion on an actual money laundering charge as well as another cuarge pertaining to sanctions violations.
For some additional context, Tornado Cash is described as a so-called decentralized cryptocurrency mixing service provider intended to offer privacy for users.
Case prosecutors now allege that the crypto mixer service had been used by cybercriminals as well as sanctioned entities.
Following the recent verdict, crypto industry professionals have tried to get behind Storm in order to get an appeal.
Storm’s case had actually started during the Biden Administration‘s term.
And now under the more progressive Trump Administration, a statement has been issued by Matthew J Galeotti, who is currently serving as the acting assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.
He argued that simply authoring computer code should not qualify as a crime under any legal system.
Meanwhile, policymakers in Washington are said to be working actively on including certain clauses in a wider market structure bill in order to protect software programmers and emphasize that non-custodial web3 developers are not actually serving as money transmitters.
This past month, the case prosecutors had requested for a retrial on the matter later on in 2026 in order to address the other outstanding charges (specifically the ones pertaining to sanctions violations as well as money laundering).
This past Thursday, the US government’s legal representative stated that Storm had actually made improvements and certain upgrades to Tornado Cash. And these codebase modifications may have assisted the bad actors with laundering money, which also (allegedly) resulted in Storm benefitting financially.
Notably, Storm’s legal team also contented that implementing a cryptocurrency mixing service is not considered illegal and argued that Storm did not develop Tornado Cash to be used to violate any applicable laws.
They stated that if the tech is actually legal, then any updates need to be able to be made since it’s used by the general public as well.
Amanda Tuminelli, CLO at the DeFi Education Fund, who is said to have been present during the court hearing, claimed that the US government does not actually have a conceptual understanding of the tech involved in this case.
She added that the “lack of nuance, the misrepresentations about how a UI functions, and the equivocation between different technologies is … disheartening.”
In the end, Failla suggested the upcoming potential dates for a hearing, which Tuminelli claimed appears as if she may be considering a retrial.