Crypto investment firm Paradigm has pledged $1.25 million for Tornado Cash Co-founder Roman Storm’s legal fight in the US.
Tornado Cash Creator Gains Support From Paradigm
Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang announced that the firm will donate $1.25 million to help Roman Storm fight allegations of money laundering. Storm’s next trial is scheduled on April 14.
Paradigm will be donating $1.25M to help fund Roman Storm’s legal defense
The prosecution’s case threatens to hold software developers criminally liable for the bad acts of third parties, which would have a chilling effect in crypto and beyond
We must stand with @rstormsf
— Matt Huang (@matthuang) January 28, 2025
Storm expressed gratitude towards Paradigm’s support, stating “Enormous gratitude to Paradigm and the entire team for standing behind me during this challenging time. Your support means the world, not just to me, but to every developer fighting for fairness and innovation. Thank you for believing in me and defending the principles that matter!”
Storm, and Roman Semenov, were charged in 2023 with allegations of “knowingly facilitating” the laundering of over $1 billion in illicit funds, including money linked to North Korea’s Lazarus Group. If convicted, Storm could face up to 45 years in prison.
Storm has defended his stance, arguing that he is being criminalized for writing open-source code that allows private transactions. Storm called the case a “terrifying criminalization of privacy” in his recent X post.
My name is Roman Storm, and I am one of the founders of Tornado Cash, a non-custodial privacy protocol.
I am being prosecuted for writing open-source code that enables private crypto transactions in a completely non-custodial manner. This prosecution represents a terrifying…
— Roman Storm 🇺🇸 🌪️ (@rstormsf) January 22, 2025
It is worth noting, that this month, a US court ruled that Tornado Cash should not be considered “property” subject to sanctions. However, a New York court rejected Storm’s attempt to dismiss the charges, citing that some aspects of Tornado Cash were still under developer control after 2020.
Many others from the crypto industry including Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin have come out in support of Storm and have even urged former US President Donald Trump to intervene, especially after Trump pardoned Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht. Republican Vivek Ramaswamy also condemned the case, stating, “You can’t go after the developers of code”, as he emphasized that the prosecutors must instead take action on individual bad actors who break the laws.