Roman Storm’s Urgent Call for Support

Roman Storm, one of the creators of the Tornado Cash protocol, is seeking another $1.5 million to cover his legal costs as his landmark crypto trial enters its third week.

In an urgent call for support, Storm posted on X (formerly Twitter) on July 26, stating that his legal costs have been “piling up fast.” He remarked, “It sounds crazy, but I need again ~$1.5mm.” Additionally, he noted that his legal team has been “working around the clock.”

> “We’ve forgotten what normal sleep feels like. Every hour counts, and so do the costs,” he added. The crypto community has already contributed over $3.9 million to help fund Storm’s legal fees for the trial, which began on July 14 in Manhattan, New York.

Source: Roman Storm
Storm’s trial could set a precedent for criminalizing open-source privacy tools, which may severely affect decentralized finance innovation and privacy rights. However, tools like Tornado Cash have been scrutinized for their usage by illegal actors, including the state-backed Lazarus Group from North Korea, leading to sanctions from the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in August 2022. Those sanctions were overturned in January after users of Tornado Cash filed a civil action against OFAC, and the protocol was officially removed from OFAC’s blacklist in March.

Storm’s Legal Fund Progress

According to Storm’s website, over $3.2 million has been raised for his Legal Defense Fund, achieving 65% of a new $5 million goal. The Ethereum Foundation has also succeeded in reaching its $750,000 goal to aid Storm’s legal defense.

> Total donations made by the Ethereum Foundation and Storm’s Legal Defense Fund Support.
Source: Freeromanstorm.com

Court Arguments

As reported on Storm’s website, his trial in the Southern District of New York is expected to wrap up within two weeks, around August 11. US prosecutors allege that Storm conspired to launder money, violated US sanctions, and operated an unlicensed money-transmitting business due to his role in creating Tornado Cash. Storm’s defense argues that Tornado Cash was never a business but rather a decentralized and immutable protocol beyond anyone’s control. They leverage a 2019 Financial Crimes Enforcement Network guidance that states developers of anonymizing software are not obliged to register as money transmitters, and they maintain that the right to write and publish code is protected as free speech under the First Amendment in the United States.

Impact on Co-Creators

Storm developed Tornado Cash in 2019 with Alexey Pertsev and Roman Semenov, inspired by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin to explore crypto privacy tools. Pertsev was convicted of money laundering in May 2024 in the Netherlands and is currently appealing the ruling. He has been released from Dutch custody under strict conditions, including electronic monitoring. Semenov remains at large and is listed as wanted by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.