A vast part of the process, according to legal experts, will focus on whether the storm intended to exploit the Tornado cash for illegal funds, or knew that it was used to wash stolen funds and whether he knew that inactivity means breaking the law, as prosecutors say.
Defense claims that developers have never intended to exploit Tornado cash to fraud, says Cohen. “The prosecutor’s office will say that they should have known, but they stuck their heads in the sand,” he says.
The jury will also receive conflicting views on how Tornado Cash is structured and working, which can affect what the rules of the storm and other developers had to follow.
Government prosecutors fight This Tornado cash was effectively run like any other profit -oriented company, regardless of the founders of waiving control over the Code of the Basic Code. In the indictment, they claim that Storm supports a money transmitter, which required him to collect information about identification of users that could prevent the inclusion of Tornado cash to wash the washing of cybercrime.
Meanwhile, the defense has repeatedly emphasized The distance between the storm and transactions passing through Tornado Cash. Although the programmers managed the optional user interface, they did not have care of users at no time, they indicate. Proponents of Storm say that the government interpretation of the right to transfer money is unprecedented.
“If the publication of the software protocol for private transactions that people make on their own behalf is a crime in this country, then we abandoned all our first and fourth rules of corrections that make this country perfect,” says Peter Van Valkenburgh, executive director at Crypto Advocacy Non -Pocotacas non -eating monet center.
The recovery, in which he suggested Storm, can submit a potentially fatal blow to decentralized finance-umbling in cryptographic circles to develop peer-to-peer financial services free of charge from intermediaries looking for rent and top-down control. “If I lose, DEFI dies with me,” wrote in Juune X Post. “The dream of financial freedom, the code I believed in – everything disappears into the dark.”
Others argued that the effects of the backlight may be even greater in the range, which caused cooling the entire software development industry. “This is a referendum on the right to publish software. It is much broader than DEFI,” says Van Valkenburgh. “It is a referendum whether you can perform the functions of programmers and communication agents without unlimited criminal liability for sanctions, money laundering and unlicended cash transmission.”
If the storm is responsible for the abuse of Tornado cash by illegal entities, his defenders ask why Linus Torvalds is not responsible for crime enabled by the Linux operating system or Meta responsible for criminal activities carried out by WhatsApp?
In the case of a guilty judgment, there is a high probability that these arguments will augment to the courts of appeal. Many supporters of the storm claim that they prefer his chances in the second circuit, in which the judges – the Inspes of the Peter Jury – are designed to issue a frigid and verdict devoid of the verdict about the application of law.
“Government theory cannot be correct and will eventually be rejected by the courts, if not by the jury,” says Chervinsky. “The United States Supreme Court may be the place where we finish.”
For his part, Storm reduced the definite and contrite form when the date of the trial is approaching. “I don’t regret my actions,” he said in Last interview With cryptographic podcast in America. “I wouldn’t change anything I did.”