Allen Charge Issued After Jury Deadlock in Tornado Cash Trial
After four days of deliberation in the Tornado Cash trial, jurors remain deadlocked on key charges against co-founder Roman Storm. Judge Katherine Polk Failla issued an Allen charge to break the impasse and rejected the defense’s request for partial verdicts. Prosecutors allege Storm promoted the Ethereum-based mixer to launder over $1 billion in illicit funds, including transactions tied to North Korea’s Lazarus Group. The defense argues he only wrote open-source code and cannot control its misuse, raising broader questions about developer liability in decentralized systems. If convicted on all counts, Storm faces up to 45 years in prison. The jury split underscores deep divisions over crypto developer responsibility and could set a legal precedent for future decentralized software cases.
Neutral
The Tornado Cash trial’s jury deadlock and subsequent Allen charge highlight significant regulatory and legal uncertainties around privacy mixers. In the short term, this high-profile case may dampen sentiment toward privacy-focused DeFi protocols but has limited direct impact on ETH’s price. Long term, a conviction could establish a legal precedent that increases developer risk and curbs integration of similar decentralized tools. Overall, the market impact on ETH trading is likely neutral, as traders weigh broader network fundamentals over niche legal developments.