Treasury Puts DeFi On Notice as Roman Storm Trial Drags On

Treasury Puts DeFi On Notice as Roman Storm Trial Drags On

August 27, 2026 · 1h 15m

About this episode

The episode discusses the implications of the Treasury's actions on DeFi and the ongoing retrial of Roman Storm regarding Tornado Cash.

Roman Storm's retrial slides to April 2027. Peter Van Valkenburgh argues prosecuting Tornado Cash's developers cost real ground in zero knowledge cryptography. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsors! Visit 1inch to swap tokenized securities, crypto and more. Simple. Secure. Self-custodial. Whatever asset you’re buying - swap it at ⁠http://unchainedcrypto.com/go/1inch-sn⁠ ======================================================== Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has declared "economic D-Day" on Iran, leaving an open question over whether the sanctions crackdown reaches Uniswap and Ethereum or stops at Iranian exchanges, where humans are in the loop. Kain Warwick and Taylor Monahan take that gap to Peter Van Valkenburgh, executive director of Coin Center, whose defense of the Tornado Cash developers rests as much on zero knowledge cryptography as on sanctions law. They cover the GENIUS Act's freeze and seize rules for the stablecoin secondary market and Roman Storm's retrial, now pushed to April 2027, where speech protections clash with prosecutors' "frying pan" theory of money transmission. The SEC's proposed exemptions, the stalled…

People in this episode

Hosts: Kain Warwick, Taylor Monahan

Guest: Peter Van Valkenburgh

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Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Tornado Cash, Coin Center, Uniswap, Ethereum, Synthetix, Infinex

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