DOJ advances Roman Storm case as FinCEN drops mixer proposal

On October 5, 2026, two arms of the US government sent very different signals about crypto privacy tools. The Department of Justice filed a new letter pushing back on Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm’s venue challenge. That same day, FinCEN formally withdrew its proposal to treat international crypto mixing as a primary money laundering concern. One agency stepped back from the mixer fight. The other stayed firmly in it. Where the Storm case stands Storm is being prosecuted in the Southern District of New York. His legal saga began with his arrest in August 2023, and the October 5 filing landed 1,139 days after that arrest. On August 6, 2025, a jury convicted Storm of operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. That charge carries a maximum sentence of five years. The jury could not agree on the heavier counts. Those were conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate US sanctions, each of which could carry up to 20 years. The retrial on the deadlocked conspiracy counts was originally set for October 26, 2026. It has since been pushed to April 26, 2027, with pretrial activity expected to begin in February 2027. Storm’s defense has a motion of its own in...