Vitalik Buterin donated 30 ETH to the Tornado Cash Legal Defense Fund.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin donated 30 ETH

($111,000) to the legal defense fund for Tornado Cash creators Alexey Pertsev and Roman Storm on decentralized fundraising site Juicebox. This information was verified with on-chain data.

Support for Tornado Cash developers

The transaction was made to the “Free Alexey & Roman” legal defense fund on Juicebox using the vitalik.eth address associated with #Buterin .

To assist the inventors of the #TornadoCash. crypto mixer who are facing money laundering charges, the fund has so far raised 591 ETH ($2.2 million) for legal aid.

Alexey Pertsev was sentenced to 64 months in prison by Dutch judges this month for processing $1.2 billion through a crypto mixer from July 2019 to August 2022 and was ruled to facilitate money laundering.

The US-sanctioned mixer hides traces on the chain.

Roman Storm, another developer associated with Tornado Cash, remains in custody in the US following an arrest in 2023 and his case is set to be heard in September.

In 2022, Buterin sent 10 ETH (about $30,980 at the time) to #AssangeDAO , a legal fund on Juicebox, to help Julian Assange.
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