The SEC chair that Ripple has sued, now continues Roman storm

Since President Donald Trump’s crypto-driven return to the office, the American digital asset industry has lost the most Favorite villainsand much of the most respected Martelaren.

But in the United States, at least one victim of the so-called “War on Crypto” of the federal government remains: Roman Storm, co-founder of the popular coin mixing service Tornado Cash, which will be tested in New York on Monday for criminal conspiracy for money laundering and the evasion of American sanctions.

And the man who now leads the indictment in that persecution? None other than Jay Clayton, the one -off crypto -villain, became hero, ran again villain, who previously served as SEC chairman during the first Trump administration.

While the vast majority of the anger of the crypto industry in supervisors was aimed for years on SEC chairman of the Biden era Gary Genslerit was Clay who initiated the SEC appearance on crypto and some of the most striking lawsuits of the financial regulator against the Greenlit industry.

At the end of 2020, for example, Clayton spoke – in one of his last actions as SEC chairman – about one $ 1.3 billion suit Against the industrial gigantic ripple. The suit claimed that Ripple did not illegally offer non -registered effects on the sale of XRP, a token developed by the founders of the company. Most of the Gensler SECs Later fallen The claims in the Ripple -suit would reflect against leading crypto owners and fairs -which still has to be officially dissolve.

In his term of office that the SEC led, Clayton brought 57 cases against crypto companies, ICOs and other blockchain-based projects, a statistics that the lawyer is proud praised On the way from the desk in 2021.

After leaving the government, Clayton returned to the practice of the rights of the Witte-Shoe New York company Sullivan & Cromwell. He also came interesting enough at the advisory board of Fire blocksA crypto -custody provider.

Clayton came back to the government in April, when President Trump appointed Him Interim -Mamerican lawyer for the southern district of New York – an important function that supervises some of the most controversial criminal persecutions of the Ministry of Justice, including those of Sean “Diddy” Combs, Luigi Mangione and Once of A Time, FTX Founder Sam Bankman Fried.

That list of defendants also includes the storm of Tornado Cash, against whom the Trump administration has continued to comply with charges, even though the Ministry of Finance is falling the Against Tornado Cash earlier this week, and the Ministry of Justice promises in April To support intermediary services that offer similar to privacy -oriented “coin mix” services.

While crypto leaders hesitate to publicly criticize an element of the second Trump administration, given the numerous gift It has handed over the industry so far, have expressed Defi and Privacy Proponents worry That a successful persecution of Storm for creating an automated website that offers users privacy protection for their crypto transactions could be a harmful precedent for aiming software developers, and even run the risk of destroying the US Defi industry.

Defi refers to a subset of crypto applications, perhaps the heart of the industry, which makes the permissionless and non-right trade of digital assets possible. Before you touch a large exchange such as Coinbase, nowadays almost every remarkable crypto assets initially act on a Defi application that is performed on a native blockchain network.

Storm itself recently has the potential of its upcoming process about that ecosystem free -list grimly: “If I lose, Defi dies with me.”

And yet, under the leadership of Clayton, the SDNY office of the Trump Doj has pushed forward With his case against the software developer. Clayton’s name has adorned the cover of a lot of pre-trial movements submitted by the Ministry of Justice in the Storm case, which in some cases successfully prevented certain pro-crypto Legal precedents of discussed during the process.

A source that is familiar with the activities of the SDNY told DecryptHowever, the fact that the motions submitted by the office of the office are generally signed by the American lawyer-that supervision of all cases in the district, but do not handle any cases of daily lawsuits.

The storm process starts on Monday, in Lower Manhattan. The trial will be a crypto reunion in more than one way: the judge of the case, Katherine Faila, previously supervised the intense, years of lawsuit of the SEC against CoinbaseIt was rejected by the Trump administration in February.