Tornado Cash Co-Founder Seeks $1.5 Million for Legal Battle

Roman Storm, co-founder of the cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash, has expressed an urgent need for funds to support his legal defense. He announced a critical fundraising effort to secure an additional $2 million for future expenses.

Dear Crypto Community & Privacy Advocates,

This is an urgent call: My trial begins July 14, and we’re facing a critical shortfall. I need to raise $500K in the next few days and $1.5M within a couple of weeks to sustain our fight — covering escalating legal fees, expert… https://t.co/AImotqvJVD

— Roman Storm 🇺🇸 🌪️ (@rstormsf) July 12, 2025

“Urgent: The trial begins on July 14, and we are critically short of funds. I need to raise $500,000 in the next few days and $1.5 million within two weeks to continue the fight,” Storm noted.

He added that the funds will be used for legal services and additional research as the trial drags on. Previously, representatives of the legal defense fund Free Pertsev & Storm predicted that the matter would be resolved in two weeks. The current expectation is three or four weeks.

The crypto community quickly responded to the Tornado Cash co-founder’s plea. The decentralized autonomous organization MetaCartel transferred the entire project treasury to the fund. A representative of GolemFoundation announced a donation of 50 ETH.

Earlier, Storm was supported by the non-profit Ethereum Foundation (EF). It donated $500,000 and also fulfilled a promise to raise $750,000 from the community.

In October 2024, developer Vitalik Buterin also assisted by sending 100 ETH (~$242,000).

Controversy Ahead of Trial

Before the trial, Storm’s defense accused U.S. prosecutors of presenting distorted evidence. The issue concerns Telegram correspondence seized from the second defendant, Alexey Pertsev.

In a court document dated July 12, Tornado Cash co-founder’s lawyers claimed that the prosecution overlooked important metadata. During a hearing on July 8, federal prosecutor Ben Arad mentioned an alleged message from Pertsev:

“Hi, is anyone ready to discuss Axie? I want to ask a few questions about how to withdraw 600 million.”

This refers to the $625 million hack of the Ronin sidechain in the blockchain game Axie Infinity.

Arad considered Pertsev’s message tantamount to an admission of guilt. In reality, it was originally written by Andrew Thurman, then a senior reporter at CoinDesk. Pertsev forwarded the message to the Tornado Cash chat, Storm’s lawyers emphasized, noting:

“It’s like saying: if a person who is threatened forwards a message to the police saying ‘I will burn your house down,’ then the victim supposedly threatens to burn down the police officer’s house.”

The prosecution acknowledged that the initial versions of the correspondence were incomplete. Nevertheless, prosecutors insist that the essence of their claim remains unchanged.

Storm’s lawyers are confident that such errors could directly affect the course of the case—especially if it turns out that the prosecution knew about the issue but concealed it. In the worst-case scenario, the court might exclude this evidence from the proceedings altogether, digital law expert Andrew Rossow highlighted in a comment for Decrypt.

Storm was charged with conspiracy to launder money, circumventing U.S. sanctions, and conducting an unlicensed money transmission business through Tornado Cash. He faces up to 45 years in prison.