In a significant move, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has made a substantial contribution to the legal defense fund for Roman Storm and Alexey Pertsev, developers of the cryptocurrency mixing service Tornado Cash. This donation is a testament to the growing concerns within the crypto community regarding the treatment of Tornado Cash developers by regulatory authorities.
The Donation
According to a recent post from the Juicebox project Free Pertsev and Storm, Buterin donated 50 Ether (ETH) – approximately $170,000 at the time of publication – to the legal aid fund for Storm and Pertsev. This contribution is noteworthy as it accounts for about 25% of the total $650,000 available to the Tornado Cash developers through JusticeDAO ahead of their trial.
Background on Tornado Cash
In August 2022, Dutch authorities arrested and charged Pertsev for his involvement with the cryptocurrency mixing service. In May 2024, he was found guilty of money laundering and sentenced to more than five years in prison. Pertsev will appeal the verdict. United States prosecutors later charged Storm and fellow developer Roman Semenov with money laundering, sanctions violations, and fraud related to their roles with Tornado Cash.
Charges Against Tornado Developers
The criminal charges against the Tornado developers seem to stem from the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control adding the mixer to its Specially Designated Nationals list in August 2022. US officials stated at the time that bad actors, including North Korean hackers, had used Tornado Cash to launder more than $7 billion worth of crypto since 2019.
Industry Outcry
The sanctions against the mixer and criminal charges against the developers have drawn significant outrage from many in the crypto industry. Buterin’s donation is a reflection of this growing concern for the treatment of Tornado Cash developers by regulatory authorities.
Buterin’s Previous Support
In October, Buterin donated 100 ETH – roughly $240,000 at the time – to the Free Pertsev and Storm Juicebox. However, GoFundMe shut down a similar fundraising effort in February. The US Treasury Department faces two lawsuits filed by crypto advocacy group Coin Center and a group of Tornado Cash users backed by Coinbase.
Court Rulings
An appellate court ruled in November that the Treasury had ‘overstepped’ in sanctioning the crypto mixer’s immutable smart contracts, but this ruling did not appear to have affected the criminal case against Storm. The controversy surrounding the treatment of Tornado Cash developers continues to unfold.
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