Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has allegedly donated 30 Ethereum (ETH), an equivalent of $111,000 per the current market price of the crypto, to a legal defense fund meant for Tornado Cash developers Alexey Pertsev and Roman Storm.
Vitalik Buterin Donates To Free Developers
According to on-chain data, Buterin made the decentralized fundraising via the platform Juicebox. Altogether, the “Free Alexey & Roman” legal defense fund has raised about 591 ETH, approximately $2.2 million to support the developers in their legal debacle.
Just In: Ethereum co-founder vitalik.eth donated 30 ETH, worth about $113,000, to Juicebox: Free Alexey & Roman at 13:58 UTC+8 today. The fund has raised about 559.81 ETH and will support the legal defense of Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev and Roman Storm.…
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) May 30, 2024
Buterin’s contribution remain unfounded considering that he once admitted to using the crypt mixing service. He claimed to have made a donation to Ukraine through Tornado Cash and data shows that this transaction took place a few days after the the mixer bagged sanctions from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC).
Pertsev and Storm are currently facing charges for the roles they played in Tornado Cash’s money laundering scheme.
Tornado Cash-Linked Entities Face DOJ’s Wrath
The case has been ongoing for a couple of months, however, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) intensified efforts on the matter recently. 31-year-old Pertsev was found guilty of money laundering by a Dutch court and was therefore sentenced to about 64 months behind bars. The current donations from Buterin and others targets the funding the appeal of the court’s decision filed in s-Hertogenbosch Court of Appeal in the Netherlands.
Roman Semenov, the embattled co-founder of Tornado Cash , arrested in 2022, filed a motion to dismiss citing that the regulators did not have a basis to charge him. He argued that his purview did not go beyond designing the code for the crypto mixer.
Unfortunately, the DOJ maintained that the developer played an active role in running the website to ensure its continued functionality. It does not appear that the DOJ will go easy on any of the entities linked with Tornado Cash.
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