Recent cases involving cryptocurrency mixing have been unfolding into an intriguing courtroom battle. The case centers on Roman Sterlingov, the founder of Bitcoin Fog, known as Fogcoin, and his legal team has strongly pushed back against the 30-year prison sentence the prosecution is seeking.

According to the defense, their claim is quite compelling: while Sterlingov was involved in developing protocols related to Fogcoin, he had no responsibility for its actual operation. More specifically, they argue that he never owned or directly ran the servers for Bitcoin Fog. During the trial process as well, they are emphasizing that most of the evidence was circumstantial.

What’s particularly interesting is that the defense team did not present any specific sentencing recommendation. They made it clear only that the prosecution’s sought-after 30-year sentence is unjust.

Looking at the background, Sterlingov was already convicted last March in a U.S. court on charges related to darknet money laundering involving Fogcoin. The allegations were that funds connected to illegal drug sales were laundered through mixing services such as Fogcoin. This 30-year sought sentence appears to have been proposed during the sentencing phase after that conviction.

It will be worth watching how the courtroom battle develops.