In New York, the second day of Roman Storm's money laundering trial saw three government witnesses testify that Tornado Cash, a privacy tool, offered little help to victims of hacks and scams who sought to recover their stolen funds. A woman from Georgia, who lost nearly $250,000 to a pig butchering scam with some proceeds laundered through Tornado Cash, stated that her request for assistance went unanswered. A lawyer for the crypto exchange BitMart, which was hacked for nearly $200 million in 2021, revealed that Storm told his team that the decentralized protocol made it impossible for the developers to retrieve the funds.
Another witness, Andy Ho, the CTO and co-founder of Sky Mavis, testified about the $625 million exploit of Ronin Bridge in 2022, with the stolen funds partially laundered through Tornado Cash. Prosecutors attempted to portray Storm as someone who refused to help hack victims or modify the Tornado Cash protocol to prevent future misuse.
However, Storm's lawyers argued that the decentralized nature of the protocol made it impossible for him to assist in retrieving funds. During cross-examination, it was revealed that Tornado Cash was not the only platform where BitMart's hacked funds were laundered, and other companies, including 1inch, Cloudflare, and Binance, were also contacted but did not respond.