Right now, the jury for the Tornado Cash trial concluded its third day of deliberation, as many within the Bitcoin and crypto area proceed to attend restlessly for a verdict.
As somebody who’s been within the courtroom for many days of the trial in addition to these three (boring) days of deliberation, I, too, am greater than prepared for this trial to come back to an finish…
…however I’m joyful it hasn’t but.
Is that as a result of I’m a maniac who likes sitting in an empty courtroom towards the southern tip of Manhattan with out my cellphone or laptop computer, weekday after weekday, solely to then spend my evenings publishing work and catching up on the information cycle?
No, sirs and ma’ams — it certainly isn’t.
It’s as a result of numerous legal professionals with whom I’ve spoken have said that the longer the deliberation takes, the higher probability there may be of Storm not being discovered responsible.
Zack Shapiro, head of coverage on the Bitcoin Policy Institute, advised me as a lot final week and in addition shared his ideas on the matter in an X post on Wednesday.
“My guess is that the longer the deliberation takes, the higher,” wrote Shapiro.
“The the reason why Roman Storm isn’t responsible (e.g. the t-shirt being a joke, and the immutable sensible contract not “transmitting funds”) are nuanced and a bit sophisticated. A knee jerk response that cash laundering = dangerous isn’t,” he added.
“So if we hear that [the] jury reached a verdict within the first half of the day tomorrow, that’s most likely dangerous information. Whereas a protracted deliberation means they’re wrestling with the ideas.”
So, please, members of the jury, wrestle away with the admittedly very-difficult-to-grasp ideas on this case, and take your time coming to a conclusion as as to if or not you need to put a younger software program developer in jail for 45 years for creating novel noncustodial crypto privacy technology that, sure, some mega-bad actors used however that was primarily utilized by those that merely needed to anonymize their crypto transactions.
I’m joyful to abdomen the combination of tension and tedium as I sit patiently in that quiet courtroom downtown, awaiting your resolution.
