Vitalik Buterin condemns criminalization of code in appeal for Tornado Cash developer

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin published a letter on Friday supporting Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm, who is awaiting sentencing in the U.S. after an August conviction on a money-transmitting conspiracy charge.

Storm, charged by the Department of Justice in August 2023, remains free on bail after a judge ruled that he was not a flight risk but faces a potential prison term of up to five years.

Buterin framed the prosecution as one centered on software development rather than direct financial harm. Storm is a co-founder of Tornado Cash, a non-custodial cryptocurrency mixer that U.S. authorities say was used to launder more than $1 billion illicit funds. In August, a jury convicted Storm on the money transmitting count but failed to reach a verdict on additional money laundering and sanctions charges.

Buterin positioned privacy tools like Tornado Cash as a necessary defense against systemic data exploitation, noting that he has used Roman’s software to buy technical tools and support human rights charities without the data being logged in corporate or government databases.

“I have supported Roman Storm’s work from the beginning both as a strong believer in the importance of privacy, and as an active user of privacy tools, including those developed by Roman,” Buterin wrote. “Unlike some others, who use these causes as an excuse to make profit and write software that has flashy advertising but is broken under the hood, Roman’s applications continued to be usable even years after he stopped working on them — this alone in my eyes makes him more honorable than much of what passes for ‘consumer tech’ in our modern world.”

Industry support coalesces as privacy tools face mounting legal pressure

Buterin’s letter situates Storm’s case within a broader argument about data protection as baseline infrastructure rather than a niche political cause. He wrote that the ability to control personal information was a default condition in earlier decades, describing modern privacy tools as an attempt to preserve protections that existed before widespread digital surveillance.

In the letter, Buterin said these protections were neither new nor extreme, characterizing them instead as safeguards that historically applied to personal communications, physical movement, and financial activity.

Buterin’s support extends beyond testimony. In December 2024, he contributed 50 ETH, valued at approximately $170,000 at the time, to Storm’s legal defense fund. The non-profit Ethereum Foundation donated $500,000 to the cause in June of last year and pledged to match a further $750,000 in community donations. In October 2025, the Ethereum Foundation and Keyring launched a dedicated legal defense fund for Tornado Cash developers.

Support has extended beyond the Ethereum ecosystem. Storm’s defense fund raised more than $6.39 million in 2025 alone, according to the initiative’s website. Federico Carrone, a blockchain privacy researcher, said he donated $500,000 to Storm’s defense, increasing a previously earmarked $50,000 contribution from his venture studio LambdaClass. The Solana Policy Institute said in August 2025 that it donated $500,000 intended to support both Storm and Tornado Cash co-creator Alexey Pertsev.

This support comes amid a global escalation against privacy tool developers. Storm’s co-creator, Alexey Pertsev, was sentenced to 64 months in prison by a Dutch court in 2024 on money laundering charges related to $1.2 billion in transactions between July 2019 and August 2022.

In the U.S., the co-founders of Samourai Wallet were arrested in April 2024 on charges of money laundering. Prosecutors alleged the wallet’s mixer processed over $2 billion in illicit funds from 2015 to 2024. Co-founder Keonne Rodriguez was sentenced to five years in prison in November 2025, while William Lonergan Hill received a four-year sentence.

Concurrently, advocacy groups are pushing for legislative safeguards. In August 2025, over 110 crypto entities sent a letter to Senate committee leaders stating they could not support key market structure legislation without explicit protections for software developers. This followed a statement from a top Justice Department official that “writing code” is not a crime.

U.S. President Donald Trump indicated a potential review of such cases, stating, “I’ve heard about it, I’ll look at it,” when asked about a pardon for Samourai Wallet’s Keonne Rodriguez during a December 2025 Oval Office session, The Block previously reported. 

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