Crypto court dates set for Tornado Cash, Mashinsky, Van Dyke

Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York proposed an Oct. 20, 2026 final pretrial conference for Roman Storm, a co‑founder and developer of Tornado Cash, signaling a potential retrial in late October or November 2026. Storm was convicted in 2025 on one count of illegal money transmitting. A jury deadlocked on two other counts-conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate sanctions-and prosecutors filed a schedule that assumes the court will rule on a Rule 29 motion in the coming months.

The filing by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York identifies Oct. 20 as the date for the final pretrial conference in the Manhattan federal courthouse. If the court denies Storm’s Rule 29 motion for acquittal on the deadlocked counts, the timetable would proceed toward trial later in 2026. The charges against Storm relate to the operation of Tornado Cash, a privacy tool that can obscure cryptocurrency transactions.

In a separate SDNY matter, Judge John Koeltl granted prosecutors 60 days to respond to a pro se motion from Alex Mashinsky asking the court to vacate his 12‑year sentence. The court set a mid‑August deadline for the government’s reply. Mashinsky was sentenced in May 2025 after a 2023 indictment charging him and Roni Cohen‑Pavon with fraud and market manipulation tied to Celsius Network, which filed for bankruptcy in 2022. As part of his sentence, Mashinsky was ordered to forfeit $48 million. Cohen‑Pavon received a sentence of time served and financial penalties.

Also in Manhattan federal court, Judge Margaret Garnett set a schedule for pretrial motions in the case against Gannon Ken Van Dyke and ordered jury selection for Dec. 7, 2026. Van Dyke, a U.S. soldier arrested in April, is charged with using nonpublic information to trade on a Polymarket event contract tied to the capture and transfer of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to U.S. custody. Prosecutors allege Van Dyke made more than $400,000 from that trading. Van Dyke has pleaded not guilty and pretrial motions and other deadlines must be resolved before the December jury selection.

All three matters are before judges in the Southern District of New York in Manhattan. The dates and deadlines in the filings depend on the courts’ rulings on pending motions and other interlocutory issues in each case.