Crypto cases are heading to court over the next few months. Sam Bankman-Fried and Roman Storm are just two crypto reps that face key deadlines. Here are the dates to look out for.
Storm is the founder of Tornado Cash, a crypto mixing service popular with privacy-conscious blockchain users and with cybercriminals, including hackers affiliated with North Korea. Last year, a jury convicted him of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, which comes with a maximum prison sentence of five years. But jurors were deadlocked on the most severe charges, conspiracy to launder money and to evade sanctions. Shortly after the trial, Storm asked a federal judge to toss all three charges.
On April 9, prosecutors and Storm’s attorneys will make their case in a courtroom in New York. Storm says that prosecutors’ evidence did not prove he had acted with criminal intent and that the case should never have been tried in New York. Prosecutors disagree, and have asked the judge to schedule a new trial on the money laundering and sanctions evasion charges. APRIL 10 In early November, the Ethereum-based yield protocol Stream Finance said an external fund manager had lost $93 million in crypto, or about 17% of its assets.
While the incident rocked users of Stream and affiliated DeFi protocols, the people behind the company were tight-lipped as to what happened — until December, that is, when they filed a lawsuit in federal court in San Francisco. Stream’s co-founders accused Georgia resident Ryan DeMattia of using the $93 million to cover his losses after he defaulted on a personal loan. They also accused Caleb McMeans of failing to honour an agreement he signed when he took control of the protocol and the Stream brand in January 2025. McMeans’ deadline to respond is April 10.
Which means we will soon hear his side of the story. FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is serving a 25-year prison sentence for defrauding his customers. But he insists his trial was unfair, and he’s asked for a new one. Prosecutors have opposed the request. Bankman-Fried has until April 13 to respond to their letter. Kaplan gave Bankman-Fried an April 15 deadline to provide an affidavit stating whether attorneys helped him draft his request for a new trial.
In 2024, a California man named Andrew Samuels sued Lido DAO and some of the industry’s most prominent venture capital firms. He alleged that Lido sold unregistered securities in the form of its governance token, LDO, and that the VCs should be held liable. Paradigm argues that its relationship with Lido DAO doesn’t meet any of the criteria of a partnership: there was no agreement to run a business together nor to share in Lido’s profits and losses. The judge wasn’t convinced, and he scheduled a trial for March 2027. That now seems unlikely — the case has been put on ice after the VCs went to an appeals court seeking an order that would compel arbitration. Arbitration is an alternative method of settling legal claims.
The judge has requested regular status updates. The next one is due on June 18. Prosecutors continue to pursue Roman Storm despite DOJ guidance. A federal judge who presided over the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried expressed skepticism the former billionaire was following the law. The former billionaire can represent himself, or he can be represented by attorneys, the judge noted. But he cannot “do both at the same time.”
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