Ethereum Foundation donated $500,000 for the protection of Tornado Cash co-founder

The non-profit organization Ethereum Foundation (EF) donated $500,000 for the legal defense of co-founder and developer of the cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash Roman Storm.

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 code is not a crime.

— Ethereum Foundation (@ethereumfndn) June 13, 2025

The fund also intends to raise an additional $750,000 in donations from the community.

Storm is accused of conspiracy to launder money, evade U.S. sanctions, and conduct unlicensed money transfer business through Tornado Cash. The trial will begin on July 14. The programmer hopes to raise $2 million for legal fees.

In August 2022, the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) added the mixer’s website to the sanctions list due to its role in money laundering. According to U.S. authorities, since the service's inception, criminals have laundered over $7 billion through it. Tornado Cash was particularly used by hackers from the North Korean group Lazarus.

In January 2025, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in the USA overturned sanctions due to "overreach" by OFAC and returned the case to the District Court for the Western District of Texas for further proceedings. In April, the agency lifted restrictions on the mixer.

At the end of April, the Federal Court prohibited OFAC from renewing or imposing repeated sanctions against Tornado Cash.

Tornado Cash co-founder Alexey Pertsev was sentenced in May 2022 to over five years in prison for laundering $1.2 billion through a mixer, but was released under electronic supervision in February 2025 while awaiting appeal. In the same month, EF allocated $1.25 million for his legal defense.

"Privacy is normal, and writing code is not a crime," the organization reiterated in its statement.

Recall that in October 2024, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin donated 100 ETH (~$242,000 at that time) to the legal defense fund of Pertsev and Storm.