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NY Prosecutors: FinCEN Opinion on Samourai Wallet ‘Irrelevant’ in Roman Storm Case

Prosecutors in the case against Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm are attempting to to sidestep the possibility that a New York judge forces them to hand over additional evidence that could help Storm’s case.
In a Wednesday letter to the court, prosecutors pushed back against Storm’s lawyers’ assertions that they’d failed to meet their so-called Brady obligations — a constitutional requirement for prosecutors to turn over any potentially helpful evidence to the defense before trial.
At the heart of the debate is a recent production of evidence in another case in the Southern District of New York (SDNY): the legal pursuit of Samourai Wallet co-founders Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill. Both cases involve a crypto mixing service that prosecutors allege was knowingly used to launder crime proceeds,
In the Samourai Wallet case, however, prosecutors recently admitted to having a conversation with two Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) officials in 2023 — before pressing charges — in which the government employees said they didn’t believe the mixing service would qualify as a money transmitting business under their guidelines and didn’t need a license to operate. Lawyers for Rodriguez and Hill accused prosecutors of suppressing critical evidence and violating their right to due process. Last week, the judge overseeing the case denied their motion for a hearing on the matter, telling them instead to include their concerns in their pre-trial motion due at the end of the month.
Though the cases are separate, lawyers for Roman Storm expressed concern that the prosecution’s failure to inform them of their communications with FinCEN regarding Samourai Wallet’s status as a money transmitting business also potentially constituted a Brady violation in Storm’s case.
In their Wednesday response, prosecutors said that the FinCEN conversation wasn’t evidence.t was an opinion, not a fact, they stated, and therefore not required to be turned over to the defense. Prosecutors also claimed that their discussion with FinCEN was irrelevant to Storm’s case, because it wasn’t specifically about Tornado Cash.
“Tornado Cash simply was not part of the conversation,” prosecutors wrote. “While Samourai Wallet and the Tornado Cash service may share some superficial similarities, they operated quite differently.”
Prosecutors said that they didn’t have similar conversations with FinCEN about Tornado Cash, claiming that there were “no such interactions comparable to those described in the Rodriguez Disclosures.”
“As the government has repeatedly explained to the defense in this case, the government has neither sought nor obtained an opinion from any employee at FinCEN — or any other government agency — regarding whether the Tornado Cash service is subject to registration obligations,” prosecutors wrote. “Such an opinion — especially an informal opinion offered by employees who expressly disclaim to be speaking for the agency — would not be legally admissible and would not constitute Brady material.”
The case against Storm is expected to begin on July 14 in New York.
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Crypto Trader Opens $1.1B Long Bitcoin Bet on Hyperliquid Using 40X Leverage

A single trader has opened a massive $1.1 billion notional long position on bitcoin (BTC) using 40x leverage on the onchain decentralized exchange (DEX) Hyperliquid, a rare instance of a ten-figure position being open entirely on a blockchain-based platform.
The trade is tied to wallet address “0x507,” belonging to pseudonymous trader “James Wynn” on the platform.
Lookonchain data shows the position was opened at an entry price of $108,084, with a liquidation level just under $103,640 — meaning if BTC drops to that price, the position could be wiped out. The trade is sitting on over $40 million in unrealized profit as of early Thursday.
Wynn closed 540 BTC (~$60M) in European morning hours to lock in a $1.5 million profit. Notably, his past three exits were followed by sharp BTC pullbacks and traders may want to watch for a repeat, Lookonchain said.
Hyperliquid is built on its own high-performance layer 1 blockchain, HyperEVM, and offers features typically reserved for centralized platforms, like real-time order books, deep liquidity, and near-zero gas fees.
Its consensus mechanism, HyperBFT, reportedly handles over 200,000 transactions per second, allowing traders to execute quickly and transparently.
Unlike centralized exchanges that require KYC or restrict access, Hyperliquid allows anyone with a wallet to trade permissionlessly. The platform has rapidly gained popularity for its speed and capital efficiency, and this billion-dollar position may serve as a signal to other large players exploring onchain execution.
In many ways, it also marks a new phase of capital migration from centralized finance to decentralized finance (DeFi) — one where whales, not just retail, are willing to place big bets outside the traditional system.
Hyperliquid’s HYPE is up 15% in the past 24 hours as demand for the token increased.
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King Dollar Falls, Bitcoin Marches Toward Sound Money Highs

Bitcoin’s BTC dollar high succumbed on Thursday as the largest cryptocurrency rose past $111,800, a remarkable 50% gain from its April low near $75,000, but when measured against traditional stores of value like gold and silver, BTC — often dubbed «digital gold» — still has room to advance.
The bitcoin-to-gold ratio stands at 33.27 ounces, below its January peak of over 40 oz. BTC has also not reached an all-time high against silver, though it has just breached the 3,300 oz. level, compared with the record 3,530 oz.
The digital gold moniker reflects bitcoin’s fixed supply and decentralized nature, and it’s increasingly living up to the name. In recent weeks, it has outperformed U.S. equities, which remain sluggish for the year despite recovering from their April tariff-tantrum induced downturn.
In fiat terms, bitcoin is nearing significant psychological milestones across other currencies too. It currently trades around 82,500 British pounds, just shy of its all-time high of 88,300 pounds, and at 91,500 Swiss francs, versus a previous peak just under 100,000 francs. These levels hint at imminent breakthroughs as bitcoin gains further strength.
Notably, BTC has already achieved all-time highs relative to major financial instruments like the Nasdaq 100 and the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT). Its continued outperformance of both bonds and tech stocks underscores a broader trend. The final frontier remains precious metals. Surpassing gold and silver benchmarks will mark a complete reversal of monetary dominance.
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Bitcoin Pizza Day Is Now a $1.1B Celebration

Bitcoin (BTC) Pizza Day is here and it just got its most fitting tribute yet: a new all-time high.
Bitcoin surged past $111,800 early Thursday, setting a fresh record. 15 years ago on this day developer Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000 BTC for two Papa John’s pizzas, then worth roughly $40.
The May 22, 2010, purchase marked the first recorded commercial transaction using BTC, a turning point that took the asset from cypherpunk code to actual currency.
That same 10,000 BTC can buy over 70 million pizzas at current prices. It is worth over $1.1 billion as of Thursday.
Hanyecz has long shrugged off the missed fortune” tag, telling CBS in 2019 that the transaction made bitcoin “real” to him. He mined the coins back when BTC was under a penny, and few could have predicted the multi-trillion-dollar asset it would become.
Still, the transaction remains a cultural milestone for the crypto market — a moment that showed internet money could work as actual currency. Now, it’s not just pizza being paid for with bitcoin. It’s property, cars, and in some countries, even taxes (briefly).
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