Tornado Cash Trial Highlights Developers’ Inaction in Crypto Scams and Hacks

During the second day of Roman Storm’s criminal trial, U.S. prosecutors accused the Tornado Cash co-founder of refusing to help victims of major crypto hacks and scams recover lost funds. Witnesses testified that Storm failed to act, despite requests from individuals and companies affected by thefts involving the privacy-focused Ethereum mixer.

One witness, a Taiwanese-American woman from Georgia, said she lost nearly $250,000 to a pig butchering scam, with some funds laundered via Tornado Cash. Her plea for help went unanswered. Another witness, BitMart’s legal representative Joseph Evans, described a 2021 hack in which the exchange lost almost $200 million. Storm allegedly told Evans there was nothing he could do because Tornado Cash was decentralized.

Sky Mavis CTO Andy Ho also testified about the $625 million Ronin Bridge exploit in 2022. Although Ho didn’t name them, the North Korea-linked Lazarus Group was later identified as the attacker. Tornado Cash was used to obscure the stolen funds.

Prosecutors painted Storm as indifferent to criminal misuse of his protocol. However, Storm’s defense emphasized the limits of decentralization. His lawyer, Brian Klein, pointed out that Storm was the only individual who responded to BitMart’s inquiries, while others—like Binance, Cloudflare, and 1inch—did not.

Ho admitted only $6 million of the stolen Ronin funds were recovered, thanks to Norwegian authorities. When asked if those funds went through Tornado Cash, Ho claimed no knowledge.

Storm’s legal team underscored that Tornado Cash wasn’t the sole platform used in these attacks and suggested that their client had limited ability to intervene, challenging the prosecution’s claims of neglect.