Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin showed his support for Tornado Cash developers with a donation. Buterin donated 30 ETH, about $113,000, to support the legal defense of Alexey Pertsev and Roman Storm. Following this development, the price of Tornado Cash’s native token, TORN, skyrocketed.
Vitalik Buterin donated for Tornado Cash developers!
Etherscan data shows that Buterin donated to the “Free Pertsev and Storm” defense fund on the decentralized fundraising platform Juicebox early on May 30. The fund has raised 591 ETH worth $2.2 million as of press time. Buterin’s donation is actually not very surprising. After all, the Ethereum inventor is a leading advocate of crypto privacy tools. Moreover, Vitalik Buterin remains a consistent user of such platforms.
Following this development, the TORN price jumped to $3.17 from its intraday level of $2.73. The token then lost altitude, but outperformed the calm market. At the time of writing, TORN was trading at $2.97, up 7.6% on the day.
Legal issues for Tornado Cash developers
As you have been following from Kriptokoin.com, last year, Tornado Cash privacy protocol developers Pertsev and Storm faced legal troubles due to their involvement with the crypto mixer. Earlier this month, a Dutch court sentenced Pertsev to 64 months in prison for laundering approximately $1.2 billion through the Tornado Cash crypto mixer between July 2019 and August 2022. However, the developer appealed the verdict at the s-Hertogenbosch Court of Appeal in the Netherlands. Similarly, Storm has been in custody in the US since 2023. Furthermore, his trial is scheduled for September.
Meanwhile, Vitalik Buterin’s donation is symbolic for Tornado Cash and its developers. Because, this move reflects the project’s growing support within the crypto community. Last month, three blockchain advocacy groups filed amicus curiae briefs in defense of Storm. They also supported his efforts to dismiss the charges.
Support from the crypto world continues!
In addition, US lawmakers Senators Cynthia Lummis and Ron Wyden also opposed the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) attempt to expand the definition of a money transmitting business to include non-custodial cryptoasset software services such as Tornado Cash. They argued that such broad definitions would stifle innovation. They also stated that it would undermine confidence in the DOJ’s respect for the rule of law.
Additionally, several crypto projects are preparing proposals to support developers. Discussions about potential donations are ongoing on the Optimism, Aave, MakerDAO, YearnFi, Alchemix, and Uniswap forums.
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