Vitalik Buterin Donates 100 ETH to Support Tornado Cash Developers

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has donated 100 ETH (approximately $242,000) to the legal defense fund for Tornado Cash developers Alexey Pertsev and Roman Storm.

I cant describe how much it means to me. Thank you for your long lasting support ❤️?? https://t.co/DjqkO5u6WR

— Roman S (@rstormsf) October 5, 2024

The donation was made to Storm’s support page. According to the page, the total donations at the time of writing amount to 327.51 ETH (~$793,000). On Pertsev’s page, an additional 56.19 ETH (~$136,000) has been raised.

“I can’t describe how much this means to me. Thank you for your long-lasting support,” wrote Storm.

This marks Buterin’s third donation to the defense of Tornado Cash developers. In May, he donated 30 ETH to the same Free Alexey & Roman fund, launched in January on the decentralized platform Juicebox.

In August 2022, the OFAC sanctioned the Tornado Cash website, alleging that criminals laundered over $7 billion in cryptocurrency through it. More than $455 million of this was linked to the North Korean hacker group Lazarus Group.

In the same month, Dutch authorities arrested mixer developer Alexey Pertsev.

On May 14, 2024, he was found guilty of laundering $1.2 billion through Tornado Cash and sentenced to 64 months in prison. In July, the court denied Pertsev bail pending an appeal.

Storm and another mixer co-founder, Roman Semenov, also face charges of money laundering and sanctions violations in the US.

Earlier, Storm was released on bail, having refused to plead guilty. Semenov remains free but has come under sanctions.