The Ethereum Foundation donated $1.25 million to support Tornado Cash developer‘s legal defense for laundering convictions in the Netherlands.
To help Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev with his legal defense as he prepares to appeal his money laundering conviction in the Netherlands, the Ethereum Foundation (EF) donated $1.25 million.
After that, Pertsev took to X to thank the EF for donating to his legal defense and repost the announcement.
Ethereum Foundation Pledges $1.25M To Tornado Cash Dev Defense
This support emphasizes how significant the case’s legal ramifications are. The rights of open-source contributors and ensuring that privacy-preserving technologies are not unjustly criminalized are more critical than my client’s. This appeal allows the court to change the precedent it set in the first place.
Early in February, Pertsev was released from prison.
The donation was made weeks after Pertsev’s pretrial release from jail in early February.
Following his arrest by Dutch authorities in August 2022, the release was a significant step in the ongoing legal battle over Pertsev’s role at Tornado Cash.
In May 2024, a Dutch court found Pertsev, a Russian national who lived in the Netherlands, guilty of money laundering and sentenced him to five years and four months in prison.
In August 2022, Tornado Cash was sanctioned by international authorities, including the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the US Department of the Treasury and Pertsev’s ongoing legal action in the Netherlands. The day after Donald Trump took the oath of office as the 47th president on January 20, the agency reversed the sanctions.
The Community Support
The Ethereum community has previously provided financial support to Pertsev, as evidenced by the most recent donation from the Ethereum Foundation.
Vitalik Buterin, a co-founder of Ethereum, gave 50 Ether, or about $170,000 at the time, in December 2024 to help Pertsev and Roman Storm, another Tornado Cash developer, with their legal representation as they get ready for a trial in the US on April 14.
In January, the cryptocurrency investment firm Paradigm also revealed that it would donate $1.25 million to support Storm’s legal defense.
