Had to leave the Roman Storm trial early to get to a recording, but when I left the DOJ was finishing questioning its final witness after a day spent parsing through what felt like endless internal communications between Roman, his cofounders, investors and alleged victims. Some of the group chat messages may have scored the government a few points. From my notes: Storm (on the suggestion to add KYC for TCash): “Such suggestions make me fucking scream with laughter.” Storm: “Show me a DeFi project that has true decentralization. Show me a project that doesn’t have some centralization.” Storm’s co-founder Semenov (on hacked funds): “It is possible to stop it as long as the governance makes the right decision.” — When this happened, the Government asked the witness to read this part again for effect — the defense objected and Judge Failla sustained (upheld) it. Didn’t make for very comfortable listening BUT the key legal question is: do these statements show sufficient intent to commit money laundering, evade sanctions, or operate an unlicensed money transmitting business? This is what the Government is alleging. That’s for the jury to decide. More later at @PubKey.(Eleanor Terrett)