Vitalik Buterin donates 30 ETH to Tornado Cash legal defense

Vitalik Buterin continued to show his support for Tornado Cash developers Alexey Pertsev and Roman Storm, who have been accused of money laundering.

On May 8, the Ethereum co-founder donated 30 ETH worth approximately $113,000 to Juicebox’s ‘Free Alexey & Roman’ campaign.

Buterin has been a strong supporter of Pertsev and Storm and has expressed disappointment with the verdict of their cases. Speaking at DappCon in Berlin, he described Pertsev’s 64-month prison sentence as “really unfortunate”.

In his view, developing software for privacy should be “a completely legal and legible way to fight for privacy.”

However, the attitude of the Dutch court, which found Pertsev guilty of money laundering through the software he developed, was contradictory. The case has wider implications for Storm, who now faces similar charges in the US.

Tornado Cash and other crypto mixers designed to hide transaction trails have faced serious regulatory scrutiny due to their potential misuse by criminal organizations.

Despite these challenges, Buterin remains optimistic, hoping for “positive clarity” at Storm’s upcoming trial in the United States. He continues to defend privacy, arguing that privacy matters not only to nefarious actors but also to “ordinary people.”

Buterin is a staunch supporter of privacy-centric cryptocurrency tools and has consistently advocated for the development of “next-gen” solutions such as Railgun and 0xbow. Creating software for privacy should be “a completely legal and legible way to fight for privacy,” according to the Ethereum co-founder.

Tornado Cash’s legal defense caught the attention of Buterin as well as prominent privacy advocate Edward Snowden. The former NSA whistleblower publicly supported the fundraiser for Tornado Cash’s legal defense and encouraged those who could help.

Snowden believes the case against Tornado Cash is “deeply illiberal and deeply authoritarian.” He expressed sentiments similar to Buterin’s, arguing that “privacy is not a crime.”

Following Vitalik’s donation, the campaign received multiple small amounts of ETH accompanied by messages such as “justice is finally coming.”

Donate for Free: Free Alexey & Roman campaign | Source: JuiceBox

At the time of publication, the Free Alexey & Roman campaign has raised a total of 559.81 ETH, or approximately $2 million.