Roman Storm
Roman Storm
Roman Storm
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SENTENCE
Awaiting sentencing on one count (up to 5 years). Retrial sought by DOJ on two additional counts (up to 40 years combined). Currently free on $2 million bail.
CHARGES
Conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business (convicted by jury August 6 2025) Conspiracy to commit money laundering (jury deadlocked — retrial sought for October 2026)

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THEIR STORY

Roman Storm was born in Kazakhstan and moved to the United States in 2008. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen and settled in Auburn, Washington. He worked as a software developer at Cisco and Amazon before transitioning to blockchain development. He has joint custody of his child and deep family ties in the Seattle area.

In 2019, Roman co-founded Tornado Cash with Roman Semenov and Alexey Pertsev. The protocol was deployed on the Ethereum blockchain as immutable smart contracts that pool cryptocurrency deposits and allow users to withdraw to different addresses, breaking the visible chain of custody. The technology serves a function analogous to privacy features in traditional banking.

In August 2022, OFAC sanctioned Tornado Cash — an unprecedented action against autonomous software code. In November 2024, the Fifth Circuit ruled OFAC exceeded its authority, and Tornado Cash was delisted in March 2025.

Roman voluntarily met with federal investigators in November 2022. Nine months later, on August 23, 2023, agents arrested him at gunpoint at his home in Auburn. He pleaded not guilty and was released on $2 million bail.

The trial began July 14, 2025. After four weeks, the jury convicted on one count and deadlocked on two. Prosecutors immediately moved to jail Roman pending sentencing, arguing “he is from Russia” — Roman was born in Kazakhstan and is a U.S. citizen who has lived in Seattle for over a decade. The judge denied the request.

Roman’s attorneys filed for acquittal in October 2025. The hearing took place April 9, 2026 — ruling pending. Judge Failla pressed prosecutors on whether merely maintaining software while knowing some users misuse it constitutes criminal liability. In March 2026, prosecutors filed for retrial on the two unresolved counts for October 2026.

The crypto community has raised over $4.7 million for Roman’s defense. The Ethereum Foundation pledged $500,000. Vitalik Buterin published an open letter. Senators and legal scholars have spoken out. Roman Storm awaits a ruling that could define whether writing open-source software is a crime in the United States.

WHY THEY DESERVE A PARDON

Roman Storm is a software developer who wrote code. For that, the United States government arrested him at gunpoint in his home, charged him with crimes carrying up to 45 years in prison, and has spent three years trying to put him in prison. Roman co-created Tornado Cash, an open-source privacy protocol on the Ethereum blockchain. Tornado Cash is not a company. It is not a bank. It is a set of smart contracts — self-executing code deployed on a public blockchain — that allows users to break the visible link between sender and receiver of cryptocurrency transactions. Once deployed, the code ran autonomously. Roman could not stop it, alter it, or control who used it. Tornado Cash had legitimate, important uses. Whistleblowers used it to receive funds without exposing their identities. Activists in authoritarian regimes used it to move money beyond the reach of oppressive governments. Vitalik Buterin publicly disclosed he used Tornado Cash to make private donations to Ukrainian relief organizations. Privacy is not a crime. It is a right. But criminals also used Tornado Cash — most notably the Lazarus Group, a North Korean hacking organization, which routed hundreds of millions through the protocol. When Roman learned what happened, he tried to implement safeguards. But the protocol was immutable. You cannot add KYC to code that no one controls. After a four-week trial in July 2025, the jury delivered a split verdict. They convicted Roman on one count — unlicensed money transmitting (max 5 years). They deadlocked on the two serious charges. The jury could not agree that Roman Storm was a money launderer. The government’s central theory failed to convince twelve citizens. Despite the split verdict, and despite the DOJ’s own stated policy of ending “regulation by prosecution” in digital assets, prosecutors are seeking a retrial for October 2026. If convicted, Roman faces up to 40 additional years. Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang said: “You wouldn’t throw Tim Cook in prison because criminals use iPhones.” The DOJ’s own leadership has said that writing code is not a crime. The DOJ is prosecuting Roman Storm for writing code.

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