The Department of Justice, like, totally said they checked out Todd Blanche’s memo from his office, ya know? It was on May 15, 2025, at 11:52 p.m. when they did that. So, the U.S. Department of Justice is gonna drop part of a count in their case against Roman Storm, the Tornado Cash developer, all because of a memo, the agency announced on Thursday.
They’re not gonna go to trial on a charge that Storm didn’t follow money transmitter business registration rules. But, they’re still gonna go to trial in July for other stuff like knowingly transmitting funds linked to crimes, money laundering conspiracy, and violating sanctions law conspiracy. The DOJ sent a letter to the judge handling the case, saying, “Hey, we’re gonna update ya on this case set for trial on July 14, 2025. After looking at it, we think this prosecution lines up with that memo from the Deputy Attorney General on April 7, 2025.”
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche wrote that memo, telling prosecutors not to go after cases where things aren’t clear or don’t meet certain criteria. Basically, they’re saying no more “regulation by prosecution.” In another case against the creators of Samourai Wallet, the prosecutors asked to pause the case while they think about the memo. Brian Klein from Waymaker LLP, representing Storm, thinks this whole case shouldn’t even exist. He said, “Dude, this case shouldn’t have happened. It goes against what the Trump Administration wanted and what the DOJ said in their recent crypto memo. Roman getting prosecuted is bad news for the crypto industry. Just drop it already! We’re gonna keep fighting for Roman until this mess is over.”
At the Consensus 2025 conference in Toronto, Klein shared his thoughts on the case. He said, “We’ve been saying all along that coding is like free speech. Just typing out code is the same as writing a book or doing some other creative thing.” Nikhilesh De, CoinDesk’s managing editor for global policy and regulation, covers all things about regulators, lawmakers, and institutions. He owns less than $50 in BTC and less than $20 in ETH. De won a Gerald Loeb award for CoinDesk’s FTX coverage in 2023 and was named the Association of Cryptocurrency Journalists and Researchers’ Journalist of the Year in 2020.
So, like, the DOJ is dropping a part of the case against Roman Storm thanks to a memo from Todd Blanche. They’re still going to trial for other charges in July. Klein from Waymaker LLP thinks this case is bogus and that coding should be protected as free speech. De, the CoinDesk editor, has won awards for his coverage on crypto stuff. It’s gonna be interesting to see how this all plays out.
