Ethereum Foundation promotes fund for the legal defense of Tornado Cash developers
By Angel Di Matteo @shadowargel
This initiative is being carried out in partnership with keyring, and in two days it has already raised about USD $22,000 to support the developers of Tornado Cash. It is hoped that this project will provide support to other programmers who need help.
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- The Ethereum Foundation established an alliance with Keyring in favor of the developers of Tornado Cash.
- They are creating a joint fund to support the service’s top programmers.
- Over USD $22,000 raised in two days to support Roman Storm and Alexey Pertsev.
- The project seeks to establish a sustainable legal financing model for open source developers.
The Ethereum Foundation and the network Keyring are raising funds for the legal defense of the developers of Tornado Cash, Roman Storm and Alexey Pertsev, with the aim of “make a pioneering initiative for legal open source financing.”
The new model was launched on Thursday and, by Friday morning, had already raised more than USD $22,000, according to the initiative’s official site. The funds come from the protocol commissions generated during the first two months of the “ZkVerified permissioned vaults” by Keyring, which will be allocated directly to the legal costs of both developers.
A model that unites innovation and protection
According to the joint statement, the Ethereum Foundation explained that this model “ensures that early adopters of the vault directly support the legal protection of privacy-focused developers.”
The organization also highlighted that, by linking the growth of new financial tools with the defense of those who build them, “Keyring demonstrates that communities can strengthen their resilience while driving innovation forward.”
The approach sets a precedent in the relationship between decentralized projects and the collective responsibility to protect the creators of privacy tools from legal proceedings.
The Storm and Pertsev cases
Roman Storm was found guilty over the summer of one count of money transmission, although the jury failed to reach a verdict on charges of money laundering and sanctions violation.
For his part, a year earlier, Alexey Pertsev was sentenced to 64 months in prison by a court in the Netherlands, accused of facilitating the laundering of approximately USD $1.2 billion through the mixer. Tornado Cash between July 2019 and August 2022. Both developers are currently in appeals processes.
The defense of both has received support from the international crypto community. In August, the Solana Policy Institute donated USD $500,000 and, previously, the Ethereum Foundation had also pledged an equal sum to support Storm’s legal defense. Even the main developer of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin has also made donations in his personal capacity to support these causes.
A change in the US regulatory tone
At the same time, in the United States there is a shift in the attitude of prosecutors towards software developers. Last week, Matthew J. Galeottiacting deputy attorney general of the Criminal Division of the Department of Justicestated that “writing code is not a crime”a phrase that generated expectations among defenders of decentralization.
Various actors in the ecosystem hope that this vision will translate into concrete actions and greater recognition of the right to develop privacy tools without fear of persecution.
A call to the crypto community
Pertsev posted on the X network on Friday that the new initiative between Keyring and the Ethereum Foundation represents an important step forward for the open source movement.
“There is still a long way to go in this appeal, as the court has decided that further investigation must take place. We continue to work for justice, and your help is invaluable to #CodeWithoutFear,” the developer wrote.
The project symbolizes a broader alliance between crypto communities seeking to protect not only technological innovation, but also the principles of digital freedom and open collaboration that have defined Ethereum and the Web3 ecosystem since their origins.
Article written with the help of an AI content writer, edited by Angel Di Matteo / DailyBitcoin
Original image from DiarioBitcoin, created with artificial intelligence, free to use, licensed under Public Domain
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