The Ethereum Foundation has funded Tornado Cash founder with $1.25 million to defend against the lawsuit advocating "code is speech".

The Ethereum Foundation has pledged up to $1.25 million to fund the lawsuit of Tornado Cash founder Roman Storm, putting developer responsibility and privacy in the spotlight. (Synopsis: Mixer Tornado Cash wins the case perfectly!) Texas Court: U.S. Treasury No More Sanctions) (Background supplement: Mixer The Tornado Cash scandal is not over? Coinbase rage: U.S. Treasury obfuscates, evades final ruling) The Ethereum Foundation has pledged up to $1.25 million to fund Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm's legal team, and the outcome of the case is expected to shape the boundaries of crypto privacy tools, open source development, and regulation. Foundation Injects $1.25 Million in Aid The Ethereum Foundation announced in its official X account that it will directly donate $500,000 and provide up to $750,000 in matching donations, for a total of $1.25 million. The announcement reiterates the foundation's position: "Privacy is normal and writing code is not a crime." In 2023, the Foundation also supported Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev. Trial Focus: Whether Open Source Code Constitutes "Money Transfer Business" Storm was charged with unlicensed money transfer business, money laundering and sanctions violations in the U.S. Department of Justice's "Operation Chop Chop" operation. The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) added Tornado Cash to the sanctions list back in 2022. Defense attorneys argued in Manhattan federal court that prosecutors failed to disclose favorable evidence of communication with FinCEN, noting that the Tornado Cash smart contract does not meet the definition of a remittance business. The Court of Appeal had previously ruled that OFAC exceeded its authority because the sanctions were immutable contracts rather than individuals. The trial is scheduled to begin on July 14, 2025. Vitalik Buterin has personally donated about $170,000, and the Coin Center, DeFi Education Fund, and Blockchain Association have filed amicus curiae briefs. Paul Atkins, a former SEC chairman, said at a public event that U.S. securities laws should not fall under U.S. securities laws just because they wrote code. Amicus curiae: An amicus curiae that is not a party to the proceedings, voluntarily or in response to a request from the parties to the litigation, provides relevant information and legal interpretation legal documents to the court to assist in the proceedings or to make the judge more aware of the case. Potential shocks: chilling effect or legal guardrails The legal community generally believes that if Storm is found guilty, open source developers may be criminally liable for the abuse of program code by third parties in the future, and privacy protocols and decentralized applications may slow down. On the contrary, if the prosecution loses the case, it will strengthen the legitimacy of encrypted privacy tools and delineate the sanctioning authority of OFAC. The trend of the case will profoundly affect the innovation speed and compliance cost of decentralized finance. Ethereum Foundation's One Trillion Dollar Security Project Releases First Report: Sorting Out Smart Contracts, Infrastructure and Cloud Security. Six Ecological Challenges The Battle of Human Nature Unsolvable by Code: Infighting, Exodus and the Future of Ethereum's Inner Circle "The Ethereum Foundation Funded the Founder of Tornado Cash with $1.25 Million to Help Defend the "Innocence of Code"" This article was first published in BlockTempo's "Dynamic Trend - The Most Influential Blockchain News Media".