Paradigm has donated $1.25 million to support Roman Storm’s legal defence.
Storm faces up to 45 years in prison for allegedly allowing money laundering through the Tornado Cash platform.
Venture capital (VC) firm Paradigm has revealed plans to lend a helping hand to Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm. As announced by Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang, the company has decided to donate $1.25 million to Storm, who continues the legal battle with the United States prosecution.
According to Huang, now is the time for everyone to stand with Storm as the final outcome of the case will undoubtedly have a great impact on not just the crypto industry alone, but even beyond. He said partly in the Wednesday :
“The prosecution’s case threatens to hold software developers criminally liable for the bad acts of third parties…”
“The prosecution’s case threatens to hold software developers criminally liable for the bad acts of third parties…”
Tornado Cash Developers and Their Legal Woes
Storm found himself on the wrong side of the law in 2023 when he, alongside Roman Semenov, were both charged by the US Department of Justice (DoJ). The DoJ found them culpable and alleged that they used their crypto-mixing platform to facilitate money laundering.
While Storm and Semenov have repeatedly claimed their innocence, prosecutors insist that the duo knowingly helped the bad actors to launder over $1 billion. Therefore, the two founders are each now looking at a potential jail term of up to 45 years if they are convicted.
Meanwhile, all along, Storm has maintained that the entire prosecution is a terrifying attempt to criminalize privacy. In a recent post on X, he hinted that the legal challenges he currently faces are simply because he wrote open-source code for private transactions in a non-custodial manner.
Trial Looms, but Crypto Community Rallies behind Roman Storm
Recall that last week, Coinspeaker that a US court had reversed the sanctions earlier placed on Tornado Cash. While this ruling was a small legal victory for Tornado Cash, a New York court has surprisingly rejected Storm’s motion for a reconsideration of his personal case.
According to a recent court , certain aspects of Tornado Cash’s smart contracts were immutable after May 2020. However, that is not to say that other parts of the service weren’t still under developer control, the court said.
Interestingly, Matt Huang of Paradigm is not the only one interested in this case. Ethereum co-founder , along with other members of the crypto community, have also shown interest. As a fact, they have made a rallying call to the US President to help lift the charges against Storm following his executive order to pardon Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht.
Storm’s court trial is set for April 14, 2025.
