Roman Storm: The Last Victim of the US Government’s Crypto Crackdown
Since President Donald Trump’s crypto-fueled return to office, the American digital assets industry has lost most of its favorite villains, and many of its most revered martyrs.
But in the United States, at least one victim of the federal government’s so-called “war on crypto” remains: Roman Storm, co-founder of the popular coin mixing service Tornado Cash, who is set to go on trial Monday in New York for criminal conspiracy to commit money laundering and evading U.S. sanctions.
And the man now leading the charge in that prosecution? None other than Jay Clayton, the onetime crypto villain, turned hero, turned villain again, who previously served as SEC chair during the first Trump administration.
The Rise and Fall of Jay Clayton
While the vast majority of the crypto industry’s anger at regulators was directed, for years, at Biden-era SEC chair Gary Gensler, it was Clayton who initiated the SEC crackdown on crypto and greenlit some of the financial regulator’s most notable lawsuits against the industry.
In late 2020, for instance, Clayton—in one of his final acts as SEC chair—presided over a $1.3 billion suit against industry giant Ripple. The suit alleged Ripple illegally offered unregistered securities when selling XRP, a token developed by the company’s founders.
In his tenure leading the SEC, Clayton brought 57 cases against crypto firms, ICOs, and other blockchain-based projects, a statistic the attorney proudly touted on his way out of the agency in 2021.
The Trial of Roman Storm
After leaving government, Clayton returned to practicing law at the white-shoe New York firm Sullivan & Cromwell. He also, interestingly, joined the advisory board of Fireblocks, a crypto custody provider.
In April, Clayton re-entered the government fold, when President Trump appointed him interim U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York—a key post overseeing some of the Department of Justice’s most high profile criminal prosecutions.
That list of defendants also includes Tornado Cash’s Storm, whom the Trump administration has continued to pursue charges against, despite the Treasury Department dropping its case against Tornado Cash earlier this week.
The Future of DeFi
While crypto leaders have been hesitant to publicly critique any element of the second Trump administration, DeFi and privacy advocates have expressed worry that a successful prosecution of Storm could set a harmful precedent for targeting software developers and risk destroying the American DeFi industry.
Storm himself recently framed the potential of his upcoming trial on that ecosystem quite starkly: “If I lose, DeFi dies with me.”
And yet, under Clayton’s leadership, the Trump DOJ’s SDNY office has pushed ahead with its case against the software developer.
Conclusion
Storm’s trial is set to begin on Monday, in lower Manhattan. The trial will be a crypto reunion in more ways than one, as the case’s judge, Katherine Failla, previously oversaw the SEC’s intense lawsuit against Coinbase.