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Jury Set to Begin Deliberations as Roman Storm’s Money Laundering Trial Draws to Close

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NEW YORK — A Manhattan jury will soon begin their deliberations in Roman Storm’s trial, deciding whether the Tornado Cash developer is guilty of helping hackers and other cyber criminals launder more than $1 billion in dirty money.

Earlier in the day, the jurors heard closing arguments from both prosecutors and Storm’s defense team, who each spent hours talking to the jury attempting to re-frame and contextualize the evidence elicited via witness testimony over the past three weeks of trial. Each side’s summation largely followed the shape of their overall cases.

Prosecutors attempted to paint Storm and his co-founders as willing participants in a criminal conspiracy to launder money for bad actors (including for North Korean hackers). They knew criminals were using their platform, prosecutors said, because they got dozens and dozens of emails from victims begging for help. They either didn’t respond to those emails, or they sent them a stock response telling the victims they weren’t able to retrieve their money because the Tornado Cash pools were immutable — a response prosecutors described as a “script full of lies.” Though the pools were immutable (a fact that expert witnesses on both sides agreed on), Storm and his co-workers had full control of Tornado Cash’s user interface and regularly made changes to it. Thus, prosecutors argued, they could have, if they wanted to, made changes that would have dissuaded hackers from using it, such as implementing a user registry that kept records of Tornado Cash’s transaction data. Because they didn’t, prosecutors said, Storm and his colleagues knew they were building a tool for hackers, calling Tornado Cash’s privacy applications a mere “cover story” for the real purpose: making loads of money off criminals.

When it was the defense’s turn for closing arguments, Storm’s lawyers pushed back against the government’s narrative, pointing out numerous instances where the prosecution had cherry-picked data, text messages and other important evidence to make Storm and his co-founders look bad. For example, prosecutors said in their closing arguments that Storm knew Tornado Cash was doing something bad, because he lied to his bank about what he was doing on a routine business account survey. But Storm’s lawyers told the jury that prosecutors had left off an entire section of answers on Storm’s answer to the bank, where he told them he was working on a decentralized finance (DeFi) project, that his company had crypto investments, and that it received money from Gitcoin, a crypto funding platform. Storm, his lawyers said, didn’t think he was doing anything illegal in building Tornado Cash — it was developed out in the open, spun out of a 2019 ETHBoston hackathon project, that attracted interest from legitimate investors.

“This [wasn’t] happening in some back alley somewhere” said David Patton, a partner at Hecker Fink and a lawyer for Storm.

Tornado Cash, Storm’s lawyers said, was developed to fulfil a real and important need for privacy in the Ethereum community. For them to have implemented a user registry that tracked user’s transactions and personal information — a “solution” floated by the prosecution’s expert witness Philip Werlau that he said could have stopped hackers from using the platform — may have dissuaded hackers, but it also would have completely defeated the privacy-preserving purposes Tornado Cash was created to solve in the first place.

“It’s easy for the prosecution…to Monday morning quarterback,” Patton said. “‘You should have done something different, we think you should have made it more like Google or Spotify…the software wasn’t illegal. He wasn’t required to shut it down or change the front end.”

Patton rejected the prosecution’s idea that Storm was therefore complicit in criminal activity because he didn’t voluntarily make changes to make his product less attractive to criminals.

“That’s such a leap,” he said.

Storm has been charged with one count each of conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, and conspiracy to violate international sanctions — charges for which, if convicted on all counts, he faces a maximum sentence of 45 years in prison.

At the time of publication, the judge overseeing the case, U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla of the Southern District of New York (SDNY) is charging the jury before releasing the group to begin deliberating.

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Strategy Bought $27M in Bitcoin at $123K Before Crypto Crash

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Strategy (MSTR), the world’s largest corporate owner of bitcoin (BTC), appeared to miss out on capitalizing on last week’s market rout to purchase the dip in prices.

According to Monday’s press release, the firm bought 220 BTC at an average price of $123,561. The company used the proceeds of selling its various preferred stocks (STRF, STRK, STRD), raising $27.3 million.

That purchase price was well above the prices the largest crypto changed hands in the second half of the week. Bitcoin nosedived from above $123,000 on Thursday to as low as $103,000 on late Friday during one, if not the worst crypto flash crash on record, liquidating over $19 billion in leveraged positions.

That move occurred as Trump said to impose a 100% increase in tariffs against Chinese goods as a retaliation for tightening rare earth metal exports, reigniting fears of a trade war between the two world powers.

At its lowest point on Friday, BTC traded nearly 16% lower than the average of Strategy’s recent purchase price. Even during the swift rebound over the weekend, the firm could have bought tokens between $110,000 and $115,000, at a 7%-10% discount compared to what it paid for.

With the latest purchase, the firm brought its total holdings to 640,250 BTC, at an average acquisition price of $73,000 since starting its bitcoin treasury plan in 2020.

MSTR, the firm’s common stock, was up 2.5% on Monday.

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HBAR Rises Past Key Resistance After Explosive Decline

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HBAR (Hedera Hashgraph) experienced pronounced volatility in the final hour of trading on Oct. 13, soaring from $0.187 to a peak of $0.191—a 2.14% intraday gain—before consolidating around $0.190.

The move was driven by a dramatic surge in trading activity, with a standout 15.65 million tokens exchanged at 13:31, signaling strong institutional participation. This decisive volume breakout propelled the asset beyond its prior resistance range of $0.190–$0.191, establishing a new technical footing amid bullish momentum.

The surge capped a broader 23-hour rally from Oct. 12 to 13, during which HBAR advanced roughly 9% within a $0.17–$0.19 bandwidth. This sustained upward trajectory was characterized by consistent volume inflows and a firm recovery from earlier lows near $0.17, underscoring robust market conviction. The asset’s ability to preserve support above $0.18 throughout the period reinforced confidence among traders eyeing continued bullish action.

Strong institutional engagement was evident as consecutive high-volume intervals extended through the breakout window, suggesting renewed accumulation and positioning for potential continuation. HBAR’s price structure now shows resilient support around $0.189–$0.190, signaling the possibility of further upside if momentum persists and broader market conditions remain favorable.

HBAR/USD (TradingView)

Technical Indicators Highlight Bullish Sentiment
  • HBAR operated within a $0.017 bandwidth (9%) spanning $0.174 and $0.191 throughout the previous 23-hour period from 12 October 15:00 to 13 October 14:00.
  • Substantial volume surges reaching 179.54 million and 182.77 million during 11:00 and 13:00 sessions on 13 October validated positive market sentiment.
  • Critical resistance materialized at $0.190-$0.191 thresholds where price movements encountered persistent selling activity.
  • The $0.183-$0.184 territory established dependable support through volume-supported bounces.
  • Extraordinary volume explosion at 13:31 registering 15.65 million units signaled decisive breakout event.
  • High-volume intervals surpassing 10 million units through 13:35 substantiated significant institutional engagement.
  • Asset preserved support above $0.189 despite moderate profit-taking activity.

Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk’s full AI Policy.

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Crypto Markets Today: Bitcoin and Altcoins Recover After $500B Crash

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The crypto market staged a recovery on Monday following the weekend’s $500 billion bloodbath that resulted in a $10 billion drop in open interest.

Bitcoin (BTC) rose by 1.4% while ether (ETH) outperformed with a 2.5% gain. Synthetix (SNX, meanwhile, stole the show with a 120% rally as traders anticipate «perpetual wars» between the decentralized trading venue and HyperLiquid.

Plasma (XPL) and aster (ASTER) both failed to benefit from Monday’s recovery, losing 4.2% and 2.5% respectively.

Derivatives Positioning

  • The BTC futures market has stabilized after a volatile period. Open interest, which had dropped from $33 billion to $23 billion over the weekend, has now settled at around $26 billion. Similarly, the 3-month annualized basis has rebounded to the 6-7% range, after dipping to 4-5% over the weekend, indicating that the bullish sentiment has largely returned. However, funding rates remain a key area of divergence; while Bybit and Hyperliquid have settled around 10%, Binance’s rate is negative.
  • The BTC options market is showing a renewed bullish lean. The 24-hour Put/Call Volume has shifted to be more in favor of calls, now at over 56%. Additionally, the 1-week 25 Delta Skew has risen to 2.5% after a period of flatness.
  • These metrics indicate a market with increasing demand for bullish exposure and upside protection, reflecting a shift away from the recent «cautious neutrality.»
  • Coinglass data shows $620 million in 24 hour liquidations, with a 34-66 split between longs and shorts. ETH ($218 million), BTC ($124 million) and SOL ($43 million) were the leaders in terms of notional liquidations. Binance liquidation heatmap indicates $116,620 as a core liquidation level to monitor, in case of a price rise.

Token Talk

By Oliver Knight

  • The crypto market kicked off Monday with a rebound in the wake of a sharp weekend leverage flush. According to data from CoinMarketCap, the total crypto market cap climbed roughly 5.7% in the past 24 hours, with volume jumping about 26.8%, suggesting those liquidated at the weekend are repurchasing their positions.
  • A total of $19 billion worth of derivatives positions were wiped out over the weekend with the vast majority being attributed to those holding long positions, in the past 24 hours, however, $626 billion was liquidated with $420 billion of that being on the short side, demonstrating a reversal in sentiment, according to CoinGlass.
  • The recovery has been tentative so far; the dominance of Bitcoin remains elevated at about 58.45%, down modestly from recent highs, which implies altcoins may still lag as capital piles back into safer large-cap names.
  • The big winner of Monday’s recovery was synthetix (SNX), which rose by more than 120% ahead of a crypto trading competition that will see it potentially start up «perpetual wars» with HyperLiquid.
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