Judge Katherine Polk Failla has postponed the Roman Storm trial to April 26, 2027. A conviction on the two remaining counts could expose the Tornado Cash co-founder to up to 40 years in prison.

Tornado Cash is a decentralized mixing service on Ethereum. A shared pool combines deposits from many users and weakens the link between a deposit address and a withdrawal address. Storm was part of the protocol’s development team. The protocol’s contracts became immutable at launch. In August 2022, OFAC, the sanctions office of the U.S. Treasury, added the service to its sanctions list. A year later, the Justice Department indicted Storm. In August 2025, the jury convicted him on one count, but remained split on the two more serious charges. The new trial date replaces the October 2026 start requested by the Justice Department. The case is expected to help define the criminal liability of open-source developers in the United States, especially where software is released and then used by others in ways prosecutors say cross into financial crime.

Why the Roman Storm trial was delayed again

The delay stems from a procedural issue. In late September 2025, Storm’s defense filed a motion under Rule 29, which allows a court to set aside a jury conviction after a verdict. The defense argued that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to support the conviction. Failla first heard oral arguments on the motion in April 2026, but a decision is still pending. As long as the motion remains unresolved, the status of the existing conviction is unclear, making a retrial premature.

A retrial had originally been expected in 2026. In March 2026, the Justice Department asked for a start date of either October 5 or October 12, 2026. Failla instead set April 26, 2027, and scheduled a final pretrial conference for April 20, 2027. More than 20 months will therefore separate the jury’s partial verdict from the new trial date.

The defense also cited a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruling issued in March 2026. That case concerned an internet provider’s liability for copyright infringement committed by its users. The justices held that mere knowledge is not enough; liability exists only when a provider intends the infringing use, for example through inducement or by offering a service designed for infringement. Storm’s attorneys have argued that the ruling supports their position. Whether Failla accepts that argument will become clear only when she rules on the acquittal motion.

Up to 40 years in prison remain at stake

In August 2025, the jury found Storm guilty of conspiracy to run an unlicensed money transmitting business. That offense covers services that move money for third parties without registering. Under 18 U.S.C. § 1960, the maximum sentence for that count is five years in prison.

The jury, however, could not reach a unanimous verdict on the two remaining charges. Those counts are far more serious: conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate IEEPA sanctions. IEEPA is the U.S. law governing economic sanctions in national emergencies. Each count carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. Together, the unresolved charges put up to 40 years in prison on the table, eight times the sentencing range of the count already decided. According to the indictment, Tornado Cash facilitated the laundering of more than USD 1 billion in illicit funds.

Storm has argued that the case is being used to make an example of him, while the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York continues to pursue the two open counts.

"Prosecutors are supposed to protect American interests and go after people who broke the law. The jury could not agree on the two most serious counts against me. And still the SDNY does not stop, because this case was never only about me. It is about making an example." - Roman Storm, co-founder of Tornado Cash

Storm accuses Chainalysis over its role in the case

Alongside the new trial date, Storm accused Chainalysis on X. The U.S. company provides blockchain forensics and sells software used by authorities to track crypto transactions. Its analyses were used in the case against Storm. He is now challenging the company’s role in the proceedings.

According to court filings, Chainalysis operated its own Tornado Cash relayer in 2022. Relayers process withdrawals from the mixer on behalf of users and charge a fee for doing so. As a result, they earn from each payout. Chainalysis therefore profited from the same service that it later analyzed for investigators. No public consequences for that dual role have been reported.

Storm also said that SDNY prosecutors spoke by phone with Chainalysis lawyers on the eve of a witness testimony, and that a Chainalysis witness later invoked the Fifth Amendment. Those details come from Storm’s own post, and no independent source has verified the docket entries he cited. Chainalysis has not issued a public statement on the allegations.

Policy changes on crypto mixers do not affect the criminal case

The sanctions basis for Tornado Cash changed last year. In November 2024, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Van Loon v. Department of the Treasury that the protocol’s immutable smart contracts are not "property" under the statute, meaning OFAC could not block them. OFAC lifted the sanctions in March 2025, and the Justice Department later instructed prosecutors to end the targeted pursuit of crypto mixers. But that policy shift affected only the sanctions designation, not the criminal charges against Storm.

The jury did not convict Storm on sanctions violations, and the civil sanctions issue remains separate from the criminal case. In April 2026, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel addressed the topic by video at the Bitcoin 2026 conference in Las Vegas in a session titled "Code is Free Speech: Ending the War on Bitcoin." Blanche said the Justice Department and the FBI no longer target developers, but instead pursue users who commit financial crimes. He described Storm’s case as a "lingering case" that still needs to be resolved.

A parallel case in Europe

In Europe, a comparable case has unfolded under different legal standards. In May 2024, a Dutch court sentenced Tornado Cash co-founder Alexey Pertsev to 64 months in prison for money laundering. Dutch investigators estimated the laundered amount at roughly USD 1.2 billion. Storm’s indictment puts the amount at more than USD 1 billion. Pertsev has appealed.

The Dutch case rests on money laundering, while the SDNY case relies on unlicensed money transmitting and sanctions law. The EU’s MiCA regulation also does not contain an explicit rule on criminal liability for developers. As a result, the Pertsev case remains the key European test case. In the United States, courts are not expected to resolve before April 2027 whether open-source code can make its authors criminally liable.