{"id":24691,"date":"2025-06-14T11:53:42","date_gmt":"2025-06-14T08:53:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/ethereum-foundation-contributes-500000-for-tornado-cash-co-founders-legal-defense\/"},"modified":"2025-06-14T11:53:42","modified_gmt":"2025-06-14T08:53:42","slug":"ethereum-foundation-contributes-500000-for-tornado-cash-co-founders-legal-defense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/ethereum-foundation-contributes-500000-for-tornado-cash-co-founders-legal-defense\/","title":{"rendered":"Ethereum Foundation Contributes $500,000 for Tornado Cash Co-Founder\u2019s Legal Defense"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The non-profit Ethereum Foundation (EF) has donated $500,000 towards the legal defense of Roman Storm, co-founder and developer of the cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The EF is donating $500K to the legal defense of Roman Storm, and we will match up to a further $750K in donations from the community.<\/p>\n<p>Privacy is normal, and writing code is not a crime.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Ethereum Foundation (@ethereumfndn) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ethereumfndn\/status\/1933564840112435567?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 13, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The foundation also plans to raise an additional $750,000 in community donations.<\/p>\n<p>Storm faces charges of conspiracy to launder money, evade U.S. sanctions, and operate an unlicensed money transmission business through Tornado Cash. The trial is set to begin on July 14. The programmer <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/rstormsf\/status\/1929861184653811949\">aims<\/a> to raise $2 million for legal fees.<\/p>\n<p>In August 2022, the U.S. Treasury\u2019s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned the mixer\u2019s website due to its role in money laundering. According to U.S. authorities, since its inception, over $7 billion has been laundered through the service, including by North Korean hacker group Lazarus.<\/p>\n<p>In January 2025, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/tornado-cash-removed-from-ofac-sanctions-list\">overturned the sanctions<\/a> citing \u201coverreach\u201d by OFAC, sending the case back to the Western District of Texas for further proceedings. In April, the agency lifted restrictions on the mixer.<\/p>\n<p>At the end of April, a Federal Court <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/us-court-blocks-ofac-from-reinstating-sanctions-on-tornado-cash\">prohibited<\/a> OFAC from reimposing or renewing sanctions against Tornado Cash.<\/p>\n<p>In May 2022, Tornado Cash co-founder Alexey Pertsev was sentenced to over five years for laundering $1.2 billion through the mixer, but in February 2025, he was <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/tornado-cash-developer-alexey-pertsev-to-be-released-on-february-7\">released<\/a> under electronic monitoring pending appeal. That same month, EF <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/ethereum-foundation-donates-1-25-million-for-tornado-cash-developers-legal-defense\">allocated<\/a> $1.25 million for his legal defense.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cPrivacy is normal, and writing code is not a crime,\u201d the organization reiterated in its statement.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>In October 2024, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/vitalik-buterin-donates-100-eth-to-support-tornado-cash-developers\">donated<\/a> 100 ETH (approximately $242,000 at the time) to the legal defense fund for Pertsev and Storm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The non-profit Ethereum Foundation (EF) has donated $500,000 towards the legal defense of Roman Storm, co-founder and developer of the cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash. The EF is donating $500K to the legal defense of Roman Storm, and we will match up to a further $750K in donations from the community. Privacy is normal, and writing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24690,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"","news_style_id":"","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1162,46,1314],"class_list":["post-24691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-court-cases","tag-ethereum","tag-tornado-cash"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"158","promo_type":"","layout_type":"","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}