Vitalik Buterin donates $240K to Tornado Cash developer’s defence fund

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has made headlines again by donating 100 Ether valued at $240,000 to the legal defence fund Free Alexey & Roman Storm. The fund supports Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm. This marks the third contribution from the prominent crypto figure to support the fund amid ongoing legal challenges. 

So far, the fund has raised over 327 ETH, equivalent to around $785,000. According to the Defend Roman Storm crowdsourcing page, these funds originated from 148 payments. The collected funds are intended to support the legal defence of the Tornado Cash developers.

After receiving the donations, Storm expressed his gratitude to Buterin, stating:

I can’t describe how much it means to me. Thank you for your long-lasting support.

– Vitalik Buterin

New York Judge rules Tornado Cash Developer’s trial to proceed

During a telephonic hearing at the end of September, a New York judge ruled that the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) case against Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm would proceed to trial. 

District Judge Katherine Polk Failla of the Southern District of New York (SDNY) denied Storm’s motion to dismiss the criminal charges against him. Failla said the charges against Storm weren’t baseless and that she “cannot simply accept Mr. Storm’s narrative that he is being prosecuted merely for writing code.”

Storm and his supporters have argued that prosecuting someone for writing code would be akin to prosecuting someone for speech, suggesting that coding should be protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. However, Failla didn’t buy it, saying that the functional capability of code is not speech within the meaning of the First Amendment.

Trial begins on Dec 2 amid rising community support

Both Roman Semenov and Storm were indicted last August on three charges tied to their work with the privacy mixer: conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business, and conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Powers Act (i.e., violating international sanctions).

Storm pleaded not guilty to the charges and maintains that Tornado Cash is open-source software that can be used by anyone and is not controlled by Tornado Cash’s developers.

The much-anticipated trial is set to begin in New York on Dec. 2 and is expected to last two weeks. If convicted on all three charges, Storm faces a maximum sentence of 45 years behind bars. This prospect has shaken the crypto community and caused an outpouring of support for the embattled software developers.

In the first half of 2024, deposits into the Tornado Cash mixer reached almost $2 billion despite sanctions imposed by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and ongoing legal pressure from U.S. officials. This represents a 50% increase in deposits from the entire previous year.

The sanctions were only effective if Tornado Cash users intended to transfer funds through OFAC-compliant centralized exchanges with know-your-customer controls and targeted wallet addresses, which are pseudonymous and can be generated on demand.