Remarks by Acting Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche at Bitcoin 2026 did little to reassure the defense of Roman Storm, the Tornado Cash co-founder facing criminal prosecution in the Southern District of New York. According to comments shared by journalist Eleanor Terrett on X, Storm’s lawyer Keri Curtis Axel said Blanche’s public message about protecting software developers does not square with the government’s continued case against her client. The exchange highlights a growing tension between the Justice Department’s stated shift away from “regulation by prosecution” and one of the crypto sector’s most closely watched criminal cases.
Storm Defense Dismisses Hope From Blanche
Terrett reported that she asked Storm’s defense team whether Blanche’s conference remarks gave them any reason for optimism. Her answer, as posted on X, was direct: no. Terrett quoted Axel as saying, “DOJ cannot credibly claim it has ‘changed the game’ while still prosecuting Roman Storm. The precedent SDNY is trying to set is wholly at odds with Blanche’s memo and the President’s policies.”
🚨NEW: I asked @rstormsf’s defense team if @DAGToddBlanche’s comments at @TheBitcoinConf today gave them any hope.
Storm’s lawyer Keri Curtis Axel said no.
“DOJ cannot credibly claim it has ‘changed the game’ while still prosecuting Roman Storm. The precedent SDNY is trying to… https://t.co/EcbPj684QR
— Eleanor Terrett (@EleanorTerrett) April 28, 2026
That response came after Blanche described a narrower enforcement posture toward developers. In remarks from the Bitcoin 2026 conference in Las Vegas, Blanche said, “The basic principle is that if you are developing software, if you are a coder, if you are part of that process and you are not the third-party user and you are not helping and knowing the third party is using what you develop to commit crimes, you are not going to be investigated and not going to be charged. And obviously facts matter because if you’re laundering money or violating sanctions, the mere fact that you happen to be a coder doesn’t excuse you from criminal liability.”
Blanche also sought to reassure the industry that internal DOJ policy had changed in practice, not just in rhetoric. “I really need coders to understand. I really need the industry to understand that we have fundamentally changed the game when it comes to our investigations,” he said. He added that lawyers representing coders under investigation “should feel very comfortable communicating with the FBI, communicating with the prosecutor on the case, and making sure that they are not violating my memo,” and said such concerns could be “elevated all the way to me.”
Lawyers Say DOJ Shift Doesn’t Match Case
For Storm’s legal team, however, those statements appear inconsistent with the prosecution still moving forward. Terrett separately highlighted another Blanche comment from the same interview: “I know there’s some residual cases from the last administration that that still need to be addressed, and I expect that you’ll see us continue to do that.” Blanche also said there are “lingering cases that are very fact-specific and very procedurally complicated,” and that the department is “continuing to deal with” them.
That carveout matters because it suggests the Justice Department sees at least some inherited crypto-related prosecutions as exceptions to its broader policy messaging. Axel, according to Terrett’s post, also disputed Blanche’s suggestion that disputed cases can be escalated through DOJ channels, though Terrett said more detail on that point was still to come. Based on the source material provided, no further explanation from Axel was included.
The broader industry response was more supportive of Blanche’s framing. Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal wrote on X that the “clear message” from Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel at the event was: “Crime is criminal; code alone shouldn’t be.” But Storm’s defense is arguing that the government’s conduct has not yet aligned with that principle. Until the DOJ clarifies how its stated policy applies to pending cases, the gap between conference-stage assurances and courtroom reality is likely to remain a central issue for crypto legal watchers.
JUST IN: US ATTORNEY GENERAL JUST SAID THEY WILL NO LONGER PROSECUTE #BITCOIN DEVELOPERS
“YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BE INVESTIGATED AND NOT GOING TO BE CHARGED”
SAMOURAI DEVS ABOUT TO BE FREE 👏 pic.twitter.com/SgXxaL8udi
— The Bitcoin Historian (@pete_rizzo_) April 27, 2026
The immediate takeaway from Blanche’s remarks is not a policy resolution, but a sharper contradiction. DOJ leadership is publicly signaling a more restrained approach toward coders and software developers, while Roman Storm’s lawyers say the department is still advancing a theory that could criminalize neutral code development. For a crypto industry closely tracking the boundary between software publishing and criminal liability, that disconnect may be as important as any formal memo.
AI Transparency Note: This article was prepared with the assistance of an AI system based on the sources listed and was reviewed, edited, and approved by a human editor before publication. All quotes, data points, and factual claims are intended to be grounded in the cited source material; however, errors cannot be ruled out entirely.
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