{"id":2995,"date":"2025-06-16T10:42:03","date_gmt":"2025-06-16T10:42:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/ethereum-foundation-donates-500k-to-tornado-cash-co-founders-defense-ahead-of-trial\/"},"modified":"2025-06-16T10:42:05","modified_gmt":"2025-06-16T10:42:05","slug":"ethereum-foundation-donates-500k-to-tornado-cash-co-founders-defense-ahead-of-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/ethereum-foundation-donates-500k-to-tornado-cash-co-founders-defense-ahead-of-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"Ethereum Foundation donates $500K to Tornado Cash co-founder\u2019s defense ahead of trial"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div class=\"post-detail__content blocks\">\n<p>Roman Storm, the embattled co-founder of the privacy mixer Tornado Cash is still receiving industry support as the Ethereum Foundation steps in with fresh financial support for his upcoming hearing.<\/p>\n<p>According to a recent <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ethereumfndn\/status\/1933564840112435567\" target=\"_blank\">announcement<\/a>, the Ethereum Foundation is donating $500,000 to the legal defense of Roman Storm. The cash pledge comes as the Tornado Cash co-founder prepares for his July 14 trial in New York, where he faces charges of operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business, money laundering, and violations of US sanctions.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Explaining the reason for its donation, the foundation stated, \u201cPrivacy is normal, and writing code is not a crime,\u201d adding that it would match community donations up to $750,000 in addition to the initial pledge.<\/p>\n<p>    <!-- .cn-block-related-link --><\/p>\n<p>Storm, who faces up to 45 years in prison if convicted, expressed gratitude to the Ethereum Foundation in a separate X post. He praised the donation as a major show of solidarity, particularly as his trial date draws near.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I just want to say a huge, heartfelt THANK YOU to the amazing Ethereum Foundation for their incredible $500K donation to my legal defense\u2014and for matching up to $750K from the community! \ud83d\ude4c Your support means the world to me, especially standing up for privacy and the right to\u2026 <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/XwdCPqzopd\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/t.co\/XwdCPqzopd<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Roman Storm \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 \ud83c\udf2a\ufe0f (@rstormsf) <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/rstormsf\/status\/1933569244933005672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\">June 13, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The latest contribution follows a $1 million donation earlier in February to fellow Tornado Cash co-founder Alexey Pertsev, who was convicted in May 2024 on similar charges and sentenced to 64 months in prison. Pertsev was recently released but remains electronically monitored on house arrest.<\/p>\n<p>Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin also previously contributed to the cause, along other industry figures like Paradigm CEO Matt Huang with <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/matthuang\/status\/1884358182082163162\" target=\"_blank\">donations<\/a> to the \u2018Free Pertsev &amp; Storm\u2019 legal aid campaign as a show of support in the ongoing battle.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors allege that Storm and his co-founders knowingly allowed Tornado Cash to be used by sanctioned entities like North Korea\u2019s Lazarus Group, thereby aiding illicit transactions on the platform. So far, efforts by their legal team to dismiss the charges have fallen short.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the third Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Semenov, also named in the DOJ indictment remains at large and has evaded authorities since the initial crackdown.<\/p>\n<p>    <!-- .cn-block-related-link --><\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Roman Storm, the embattled co-founder of the privacy mixer Tornado Cash is still receiving industry support as the Ethereum Foundation steps in with fresh financial support for his upcoming hearing.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":321,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2995"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2996,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2995\/revisions\/2996"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}