Roman Storm asks for $1.5M lifeline as Tornado Cash trial presses on

Roman Storm, one of the creators behind the Tornado Cash protocol, is seeking another $1.5 million to cover mounting legal costs as his landmark crypto trial enters its third week.

In an “urgent call for support,” Storm asked for another $1.5 million in a July 26 X post, explaining that legal costs have been “piling up fast.”

“It sounds crazy, but I need again ~$1.5mm,” Storm wrote, while noting in a separate X post that his legal team has been “working around the clock.”

“We’ve forgotten what normal sleep feels like. Every hour counts, and so do the costs,” he said. The crypto community has already donated over $3.9 million to fund Storm’s legal fees for the trial, which commenced on July 14 in Manhattan, New York.

Source: Roman Storm
Storm’s trial could establish a precedent for criminalizing open-source privacy tools, posing a serious risk to decentralized finance innovation while significantly restricting privacy rights.

However, crypto privacy tools like Tornado Cash have drawn negative attention due to their use by illicit actors — including the North Korean state-backed Lazarus Group — which led the US Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to sanction the protocol in August 2022.

Those sanctions were overturned in January after Tornado Cash users filed a civil action against OFAC.

The crypto mixing protocol was officially removed from OFAC’s blacklist in March.

Storm’s legal team has already raised millions

According to Roman Storm’s website, more than $3.2 million has been raised to support Storm’s Legal Defense Fund — 65% of a new $5 million goal.

The Ethereum Foundation also reached its $750,000 goal to assist Storm’s legal defense.

Total donations made by the Ethereum Foundation and Storm’s Legal Defense Fund Support. Source: Freeromanstorm.com

Arguments are being laid out in court

According to Storm’s website, the trial in the Southern District of New York is expected to conclude within two weeks, around Aug. 11.

US prosecutors argue that Storm conspired to launder money, violated US sanctions, and operated an unlicensed money-transmitting business in connection with his role in creating Tornado Cash.

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Storm’s legal team argues that Tornado Cash was never a business but a decentralized and immutable protocol used beyond its control.

They’re relying on a 2019 Financial Crimes Enforcement Network guidance that said developers of anonymizing software were not required to register as money transmitters.

They’re also arguing that the right to write and publish code is protected as free speech under the First Amendment in the US.

Tornado Cash’s two other co-creators have also been impacted

Storm built Tornado Cash alongside Alexey Pertsev and Roman Semenov in 2019 after being inspired by Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin to explore crypto privacy tools earlier that year.

Pertsev was found guilty of money laundering in May 2024 in the Netherlands and is currently appealing the verdict. He was released from Dutch custody under strict conditions, including electronic monitoring,

Semenov remains at large and is on the US Federal Bureau of Investigation’s wanted list.

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