On April 5, three blockchain advocacy groups filed an amicus brief in support of Tornado Cash developer vRoman Storm’s motion to dismiss in criminal charges facing him in the United States.
The opinions support Storm's motion to dismiss the charges against him and lay out several arguments to ensure the developer is not protected from such legal action.
The Blockchain Association said the government’s case has “critical flaws” and could have an “adverse impact” on the crypto industry if adopted.
The organization's legal director, Marisa Tashman Coppel, claimed that the government's designation of Tornado Cash as an unlicensed money transmitter is unfounded. Money transmitters must have complete and independent control over user assets under Title 18 of the United States Code, Section 1960, and FinCEN regulations.
“Without the ability to independently move funds on behalf of users, one cannot be a money transmitter,” she said.
Tornado Cash and its developers do not control the funds as the protocol is self-executing and immutable. Instead, users retain control of their assets, which are held in pools managed by non-custodial smart contracts.
CoinCenter gets involved
Peter Van Valkenburg, CoinCenter’s head of research, said the U.S. government “erroneously charged Tornado Cash’s developers with criminal conspiracy.”
Like the Blockchain Association, Valkenburg and CoinCenter minimized the role of developers in Tornado Cash operations by referencing the platform’s smart contract-based mining pools.
Valkenburg also explained that Tornado Cash’s software tools and UI interface are not essential, meaning that even if the platform is used for these purposes, the defendants do not execute transactions, commingle assets, receive funds, or provide secret notes.
He compared Tornado Cash to TurboTax, which provides a useful way for users to prepare their taxes but does not replace users in filing and paying their taxes.
CoinCenter also made legal arguments in support of software publishing being considered free speech and supporting statutory exemptions for information transactions. It compared Tornado Cash to SWIFT, claiming that both platforms should be immune from direct sanctions because they each only process information.
DeFi Education Fund
The DeFi Education Fund believes that developers should not be held liable when third parties use their software to conduct criminal activities.
The group's chief legal officer, Amanda Tuminelli, explained that the U.S. government has never used one particular statute, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), in a similar way.
In more than 100 other cases recently investigated by the DeFi Education Fund, the government accused defendants of interacting with sanctioned counterparties. However, the developers of platforms like Tornado Cash do not have any such counterparties.
Motion to Dismiss
Storm and his attorneys initially filed a motion to dismiss the criminal charges on March 29, showing amicus briefs from various organizations advocating explicitly in support of the motion.
It is unclear whether the motion to dismiss will be successful as the case is still in the early stages. Roman Storm, who was charged by the U.S. Department of Justice in August 2023, will remain free on bail pending trial in September.
The U.S. Treasury Department and OFAC sanctioned Tornado Cash in August 2022, claiming that the platform had laundered more than $7 billion in cryptocurrency since 2019. It linked some of that activity to the North Korean government-backed Lazarus Group.
