“It might seem absurd, but I require approximately another $1.5 million,” Storm stated in his post, pointing out his legal team has been working tirelessly. “We’ve lost track of what normal sleep is. Every minute is crucial, and so are the expenses,” he added.

The crypto community has previously donated over $3.9 million to cover Storm’s legal fees for the trial, which began on July 14 in Manhattan, New York. This trial could set a precedent for criminalizing open-source privacy tools, potentially stifling decentralized finance innovation and significantly curtailing privacy rights.

However, crypto privacy tools like Tornado Cash have been scrutinized due to their misuse by illegal entities, including the North Korean state-backed Lazarus Group. This led the US Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to sanction the protocol in August 2022. These sanctions were eventually revoked in January after Tornado Cash users initiated a civil lawsuit against OFAC. The crypto mixing protocol was officially delisted from OFAC’s blacklist in March.

Storm’s website reveals that over $3.2 million has been raised for his Legal Defense Fund, reaching 65% of a new $5 million target. The Ethereum Foundation has also accomplished its $750,000 goal to aid Storm’s legal defense.

The Southern District of New York trial is projected to wrap up in about two weeks, around August 11. US prosecutors insist that Storm conspired to launder money, violated US sanctions, and ran an unlicensed money-transmitting business via his involvement in Tornado Cash. Storm’s legal team counters that Tornado Cash was never a business but a decentralized and immutable protocol beyond their control.

Storm, along with Alexey Pertsev and Roman Semenov, developed Tornado Cash in 2019, motivated by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin to investigate crypto privacy tools. Pertsev was convicted of money laundering in the Netherlands in May 2024 and is currently appealing the decision, while Semenov remains elusive and features on the US Federal Bureau of Investigation’s wanted list.

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As the trial enters into its second week, David Patton, the lawyer representing Storm, has challenged the witness’ claims that her stolen cryptocurrency was laundered via Tornado Cash. The reports of this development have been covered by DL News and CoinDesk.

The witness, Hanfeng Ling, had previously testified that she fell prey to a pig butchering scam in 2021. She also asserted that a “crypto recovery service” she utilized indicated that some of the stolen funds had been funneled through Tornado Cash. However, Storm’s defense team expressed their inability to trace Ling’s funds back to Tornado Cash over the weekend.

Taylor Monahan, an Ethereum security expert, took to social media over the weekend to state that scammers do not typically use Tornado Cash. She made a series of posts detailing her belief that Ling’s funds were not laundered via Tornado Cash.

Storm’s trial, which started last week in a Manhattan federal court, sees him facing charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering and sanctions violations connected to his operation of Tornado Cash. If found guilty on all charges, Storm could be looking at a maximum sentence of 45 years in prison. He has entered a plea of not guilty.

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The Inner City Press reported Judge Failla’s remarks on Tuesday, indicating a likely denial of a motion to discuss North Korea and the Lazarus Group hackers in the prosecutors’ case against Storm. However, she seemed willing to exclude the August 2022 sanctions, which were eventually repealed.

The sanctions under debate were initiated by the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which added addresses linked to Tornado Cash to its Specially Designated Nationals list in 2022. Nonetheless, following a repeal order from a federal judge in a civil case brought by Tornado Cash users, the OFAC rescinded its stance on the crypto mixer in March.

‘The sanctions were withdrawn,’ Judge Failla stated. ‘So [Storm] has consciousness of guilt for something he was not ultimately guilty of.’

Storm was charged in August 2023 with money laundering, conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitter, and conspiracy to violate US sanctions. Failla is set to decide on the admissible witnesses before the commencement of Storm’s trial on Monday.

Storm’s indictment has led to significant industry figures in the crypto and blockchain sector advocating for the dismissal of the charges. Supporters argue that ‘writing code is not a crime.’ Notably, the Ethereum Foundation, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, and Paradigm founder Matt Huang have donated to Storm’s legal fund.

Assuming no delays, Storm’s trial could become a landmark legal event in the crypto industry, following the conviction of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and the sentencing of former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao and former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky. Additionally, Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon is facing federal charges relating to securities fraud, commodities fraud, market manipulation, and money laundering following his extradition from Montenegro to the US.

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