White House Crypto Report Drops This Week; Storm Trial Enters Week 2
New policy blueprint expected from the White House; privacy takes center stage in Roman Storm’s defense
Welcome to the Monday edition of the Crypto In America newsletter!
What you’ll read: Crypto policy momentum continues in D.C. after Crypto Week, and week two of the Roman Storm trial gets underway.
Crypto Week may be over, but there’s still more to come.
The White House is expected to release its long-awaited digital assets report as soon as today — the first major crypto policy blueprint from the Trump administration and the product of months of interagency work.
The report is officially due tomorrow, but a White House official tells Crypto In America it will be released around that date — and definitely before the end of the month.
The report comes out of the President’s Working Group on Digital Assets, co-led by David Sacks and Bo Hines, and follows a January executive order aimed at strengthening U.S. leadership in the sector.
Details remain scarce, but the report is expected to include regulatory and legislative proposals on issues like a national digital asset stockpile and a strategic Bitcoin reserve. It may also feature national security recommendations focused on illicit finance and sanctions evasion.
The working group was originally charged with crafting a federal stablecoin framework — a goal effectively addressed by Congress through the passage of the GENIUS Act. It was also responsible for considering issues related to market structure, oversight, consumer protection, and risk management.
Some industry watchers also expect the report to recommend fairer banking access for crypto firms, particularly at the Federal Reserve.
Over in the Senate, the Banking Committee is expected to release its market structure discussion draft this week, following last week’s postponement. Chairman Tim Scott (R-SC) said Friday that a markup is expected after August recess.
And this afternoon, the Senate Agriculture Committee will vote on Brian Quintenz’s nomination to chair the CFTC. He’s expected to advance out of committee, but it’s unclear when the full Senate will hold a vote.
Judge Limits “Right to Privacy” Defense in Roman Storm Trial
Privacy is in — but not the “right to privacy.”
That’s the line Judge Katherine Polk Failla drew Friday in U.S. v. Roman Storm.
In a mixed ruling, Failla said Storm’s lawyers can talk about the importance of privacy, but can’t frame it as a constitutional right — a partial win for the defense and a setback for prosecutors, who had pushed to block all mention of privacy entirely.
Storm, co-founder of the Tornado Cash protocol, is facing up to 45 years in prison on charges tied to money laundering, operating an unlicensed money transmitting business, and violating U.S. sanctions. His defense team argues the tool was built to protect user anonymity, not to break the law.
Failla ruled that privacy as a concept is fair game, but she warned Storm’s attorneys not to edge too close to constitutional language — like the “right to privacy” — which could confuse jurors or imply protections the court has already ruled don’t apply here.
Prosecutors objected to Storm’s opening statement, in which defense attorney Keri Curtis Axel said, “How would you feel if someone took your bank account and published it on the internet? People could figure out where you shop, where you eat, your favorite stores — even where your kids go to school.”
Failla said those comments came “very close to the line.”
She also placed limits around any references to crypto-related kidnappings, ruling they can only be discussed to explain Storm’s state of mind when building the protocol, and only if they occurred before August 8, 2022 — the cutoff for events relevant to the indictment.
Meanwhile, proponents of Storm are raising questions about the government’s very first witness — a woman who lost most of her life savings in a pig butchering scam. Crypto sleuth @tayvano_ has argued that none of her funds actually went through Tornado Cash, despite the implication in court. That’s prompted criticism from some in the industry over the witness's inclusion.
Katie Biber, chief legal officer at Paradigm, called it “a stunning lack of diligence,” adding:
“I want to give prosecutors the benefit of the doubt. But @tayvano_ compellingly argues that their opening witness in Roman Storm's case didn’t actually lose funds to Tornado Cash. Government needs to explain ASAP.”
Storm’s trial began last week and is expected to last three weeks.
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