Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of ETH to Alexey Pertsev, a developer of Tornado Cash, a crypto mixer once sanctioned by the US government.
According to Etherscan data reported by crypto reporter Colin Wu, Buterin donated a total of 100 ETH to Pertsev on two occasions, helping him pay legal fees.
“[Vitalik] donated 50 ETH, worth about $170,000, to Juicebox: Support Alexey Pertsev today Currently, Juicebox: Support Alexey Pertsev has raised more than 184 ETH. Alexey Pertsev is a Tornado Cash developer and is seeking more funds to pay for ongoing legal fees.
[Vitalik] donated another 50 ETH to Juicebox: Support Alexey Pertsev today, totaling 100 ETH, worth about $340,000.”
An X page dedicated to helping the Tornado Cash developers publicly thanked Buterin for the donation.
In May of 2024, Pertsev was sentenced to five years and four months in prison by a Dutch court for allegedly laundering billions of dollars.
The US banned the use of Tornado Cash in 2022, citing national safety concerns. However, a US appeals court sided with Tornado Cash in November of last year, effectively overturning its ban by saying the Treasury Department’s actions against it were unlawful.
The judge in the case ruled that smart contracts do not technically qualify as “property” and thus the ban under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act – which allows the President to “block any property in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest” – was an overreach of power.
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