SEC’s Hester Peirce Defends Crypto Privacy in Tornado Cash Trial Showdown

La commissaire de la SEC Hester Peirce monte au créneau pour défendre les droits à la vie privée dans l’espace crypto, alors que le procès de Tornado Cash s’intensifie. Un bras de fer juridique qui pourrait redéfinir les limites de la confidentialité financière.

Alors que les régulateurs serrent la vis, Peirce rappelle que la vie privée n’est pas un crime – même sur la blockchain. Un positionnement audacieux qui secoue l’establishment financier.

Le procès de Tornado Cash devient le champ de bataille idéologique pour l’avenir des transactions décentralisées. Les crypto-anarchistes jubilent, les banquiers centraux transpirent.

Et pendant ce temps, Wall Street continue de blanchir des milliards en silence – la vraie ironie de ce débat sur la transparence.

Tornado Cash trial debates developer liability 

Peirce’s remarks come as Roman Storm, co-founder of crypto mixing service Tornado Cash, awaits a verdict in the Southern District of New York. 

Storm is accused of enabling money laundering through the service, though his defense team maintains that the tool is neutral and not inherently illegal.

The Commissioner compared the case to the 1990s battle over cryptography, when engineers like Phil Zimmermann fought for strong encryption for everyone. She points out that these early victories were crucial to the success of the internet, but reminds us that they still inform our modern fight for privacy rights.

SEC Commissioner warns against undermining civil liberties  

Peirce also criticized the now-defunct DeFi broker rule, which would have required decentralized platforms to collect and report user data to the IRS. “Doing so would deputize us to surveil our neighbors—a practice antithetical to a free society,” she said.

Like the internet, she maintained that blockchain-based technologies with legitimate uses must remain openly accessible—even if some bad actors misuse them—because restricting them risks infringing on fundamental freedoms.

The Tornado Cash trial may establish a crucial legal precedent for courts’ interpretation of developer liability in the crypto space.

In a related case, Samourai Wallet co-founders Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill have indicated their intention to plead guilty to charges linked to their crypto mixing service.

Documents filed in a New York federal court on Thursday indicated that Rodriguez and Hill both intend to enter guilty pleas on Wednesday morning. In April 2024, the two had entered their original not guilty plea in connection with allegations they operated an unlicensed money transmitting business that processed over $2 billion of illegal financial transactions— some linked to darknet marketplaces like Silk Road. 

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