Leaders from the crypto industry have urged President Donald Trump to discontinue the Department of Justice's (DOJ) "lawless campaign" from the Joe Biden era to criminalize developers who create open-source software.
In particular, the group has urged the Trump administration to stop the prosecution of Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm by the Southern District of New York (SDNY).
The DeFi Education Fund, a crypto advocacy group, has written a letter to the White House's crypto czar David Sacks, urging President Trump to "take immediate action" to halt Storm's prosecution.
The SDNY charged Storm and Roman Semenov , both co-founders of the crypto mixer Tornado Cash, on Aug. 23, 2023, for allegedly conspiring to commit money laundering and violate sanctions by creating, operating, and promoting Tornado Cash.
Earlier, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Tornado Cash on Aug. 8, 2022, alleging that the North Korea-linked notorious Lazarus hacking group had used it to launder stolen crypto assets worth $455 million. The mixer facilitated laundering of crypto assets worth over $7 billion, the OFAC claimed.
Storm has decried the charges against him, saying that the "fatally flawed" indictment should be dismissed on several grounds, including for violating the First Amendment on free speech. He awaits his trial scheduled for mid-July.
Innovation at risk
"This kind of legal environment does not just chill innovation — it freezes it; it empowers politically-motivated enforcement and puts every open-source developer at risk, regardless of industry," the DeFi Education Fund's letter read.
Though the group praised Trump's pro-crypto steps, such as his executive order on the strategic Bitcoin reserve, it asked the president to stop the prosecution of developers; otherwise, his goal to "make America the crypto capital of the planet" can't be realized.
By the time of writing this article, over 200 people have signed the letter. Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam, Multicoin Capital Managing Partner Kyle Samani, Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang, Blockchain Association CEO Kristin Smith, and Strangelove founder Jack Zampolin are among the signatories.
