Vitalik Buterin Donates $170K ETH for Tornado Cash Developers' Legal Defense
Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum co-founder, donated heavily to Tornado Cash creators Roman Storm and Alexey Pertsev's legal defense.
According to a December 31 Juicebox project post by “Free Pertsev and Storm,” Buterin paid 50 Ether (ETH), worth $170,000 at the time, to the fund to help engineers facing major legal issues.
Tornado Cash creators get 25% of $650,000 from JusticeDAO, a community-driven effort to support their legal fights.
Buterin had already contributed 100 ETH, worth $240,000, in October, showing his ongoing support for the devs despite fears about government overreach in crypto.
The Tornado Cash crew faced legal issues in 2022 when Dutch police detained Pertsev for money laundering for his bitcoin mixing business.
Storm and developer Roman Semenov were accused with money laundering, sanctions breaches, and fraud by U.S. prosecutors. Storm, freed on bond, will face trial on April 14, while Semenov remains at large.
Tornado Cash was added to OFAC's Specially Designated Nationals list in August 2022, prompting the allegations.
The mixer is accused of laundering over $7 billion in cryptocurrencies, including North Korean hacker funding.
Coin Center and Tornado Cash customers supported by Coinbase have sued the Treasury.
An appeal court decided in November that OFAC had “overstepped” by sanctioning immutable Tornado Cash smart contracts, but the criminal charges against Storm and Pertsev remain unaffected.
Buterin also urged Elon Musk to tone down his X conversations after a fiery argument over US foreign tech workers.
On Dec. 31, Buterin praised Musk's free speech but advised him to “turn down the temperature” on the platform.
Buterin's remarks followed Musk's expletive-filled tweet supporting H1B visa holders, which conservative users said hurts local U.S. workers.
After challenging Musk, several opponents claimed their accounts were withdrawn of premium privileges, claiming censorship.
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