Tornado Cash is once again at the center of attention following GoFundMe’s cancellation of a fundraising campaign aimed at covering the legal fees of Alexey Pertsev and Roman Storm, 2 key members of the cryptocurrency mixer’s team. This incident highlights the issues around both solidarity within the community and the obstacles faced by open source application developers in the cryptocurrency world.
Tornado Cash censored once again
GoFundMe, the U.S.-based crowdfunding platform, has canceled a fundraiser to cover the legal fees of Alexey Pertsev, developer of Tornado Cash, and Roman Storm, its co-founder.
It should be noted that only a limited portion of the funds raised by the Tornado Cash team came from GoFundMe, with $30,000 posted when the fundraiser was closed. These donations will be fully refunded to contributors.
Important campaign update:
Yesterday, @gofundme notified the campaign organizers that the fundraiser for @rstormsf‘s legal defense was cancelled. They cite Term 22 of their terms of service, which can be interpreted to mean they simply didn’t like the fundraiser. pic.twitter.com/xqEFZ9Ncd5
– Free Pertsev & Storm (@FreeAlexeyRoman) February 14, 2024
Today, Roman Storm and Alexey Pertsev hope to raise $1.5 million to cover their legal fees. They are now turning to JuiceBox, another crowdfunding platform, where almost 700 donations have been registered at the time of writing, accumulating more than 316 Ethers worth $890,000 at the current price.
As a reminder, in August 2022, the U.S. Treasury Department blacklisted Tornado Cash for its alleged involvement in money laundering, prohibiting any interaction by U.S. citizens with the protocol.
A few days later, Alexey Pertsev was arrested by the authorities and taken into custody. In August 2023, Roman Storm was also arrested, while the 2nd founder was declared a fugitive.
On January 22, 2024, Roman Storm launched a fundraising campaign for his defense, raising $350,000 in just a few days, thanks in particular to the support of Edward Snowden.
Why is the cryptocurrency community so mobilized?
A blender is an application that anonymizes cryptocurrencies, improving the confidentiality of transactions and its users. The controversy surrounding Tornado Cash rests on the accusation that it facilitated money laundering for some users.
The cryptocurrency community defends the Tornado Cash team, arguing that the application is a protocol made open source and that the main objective of the mixers is to enhance the privacy of its users.
It stresses that only a minority use these services for illegal activities and that, in any case, these transactions can be detected by other means.
The community believes that the actions against Tornado Cash and the arrest of its team members are more an invasion of privacy than an anti-money laundering measure.
The transparent nature of blockchain makes it easier to track the origin of transactions. According to Chainalysis data, only 0.34% of cryptocurrency exchanges were associated with illicit activity during 2023.
In contrast, traditional currencies are harder to trace. The UN estimates that nearly $2 trillion in fiat currencies is used in illegal transactions every year, equivalent to around 2.3-5.5% of global gross domestic product (GDP).
