Crypto Advocates Push Trump to Step Into Roman Storm Retrial
Advocates say Roman Storm conviction makes ‘writing code’ a crime in America
Crypto advocacy groups are calling on United States President Donald Trump to intervene in the legal battle against Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm, turning the case into a major test of how the country treats open-source crypto developers.
In a letter dated Thursday, more than 65 cryptocurrency firms and policy organizations, including the Solana Policy Institute, Blockchain Association, and DeFi Education Fund, urged Trump to take a stronger stance on digital asset policy and the Storm prosecution. The groups want the White House to push the IRS and US Treasury to clarify crypto tax rules, shield decentralized finance from what they see as regulatory overreach, and press agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission to provide clear, consistent guidance for the industry.
The most explosive request is that Trump encourage the Department of Justice to drop all remaining charges against Storm and support efforts to overturn his recent conviction for operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business. Supporters argue that Storm’s work on Tornado Cash was the creation and publication of open-source code, which they say should be protected speech under the First Amendment rather than treated as a financial crime.
Storm, indicted in August 2023, has pleaded not guilty and repeatedly insisted that “writing code is not a crime.” A Justice Department official recently said at a crypto policy event that simply writing code without bad intent is not illegal, yet federal prosecutors in New York are still opposing Storm’s motion for acquittal, with a court conference set for Jan. 22.
While US presidents can shape Justice Department priorities, long-standing norms discourage direct interference in individual prosecutions, putting Trump in a politically sensitive spot if he decides to get involved.
