Overview

• A 12-member jury has been seated in lower Manhattan and has begun hearing opening statements in the trial of Roman Storm.
• Prosecutors contend Storm knowingly facilitated laundering of over $1 billion in cryptocurrency, including funds tied to North Korea’s Lazarus Group, through Tornado Cash.
• The government introduced evidence such as a photo of Storm wearing a Tornado Cash “washing machine” T-shirt and alleged he removed a software control switch to hide his continued oversight.
• Storm’s defense argues that the Ethereum mixing service was built as a legitimate privacy tool and that he neither directed nor encouraged criminal misuse of the platform.
• The trial is expected to run three to four weeks, with witness testimonies from hack victims and law enforcement scheduled in the coming days.