Vitalik Buterin Donates 100 ETH To Tornado Cash Campaign Following Memecoin Offload

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As a seasoned researcher with a keen eye for the interplay between technology and society, I find Vitalik Buterin’s recent actions both intriguing and commendable. His donation of 100 ETH to the legal defense fund of Tornado Cash developers underscores his unwavering commitment to the decentralized ethos he helped birth.

Vitalik Buterin, one of Ethereum‘s (ETH) co-founders, has earned praise for donating a significant portion of his assets to aid developers working on Tornado Cash. This generous act follows his recent attention-grabbing move of selling off a large quantity of his memecoin holdings in the crypto market.

Vitalik Buterin Supports Tornado Cash Founders With $242,000 ETH

On Saturday, a post on the Wu blockchain platform disclosed that Vitalik Buterin exchanged varying quantities of meme tokens worth approximately $340,000 in ETH from his digital wallet. The tokens he offloaded consisted of 70.71 million Neiro, 11.76 billion MOONDENG, 7.8 million DEGEN, 16.03 billion KABOSU, and additionally 100,000 USDT that was donated by the CATE project.

After these transactions, the blockchain analysis platform Spot on Chain observed that Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin donated 100 ETH, equivalent to approximately $242,000, to the legal defense fund of Tornado Cash developers Alexey Pertsev and Roman Storm. This is a subsequent donation to the same cause, following an earlier contribution of 30 ETH, worth around $112,000 at that time, made by Buterin in May.

Pertsev and Storm are two out of the three initial creators of the cryptocurrency tumbler service known as Tornado Cash. This platform has faced scrutiny from various national authorities due to allegations that it serves as a conduit for illegal activities. As per the United States Department of Justice, since its inception in 2019, Tornado Cash has been involved in laundering over one billion dollars’ worth of money.

At the moment, two Ethereum co-founders are embroiled in legal disputes: Pertsev is serving a five-year sentence in the Netherlands, while Roman Storm is yet to stand trial in the United States after his August 2023 arrest. The whereabouts of the third co-founder, Roman Semenov, are unclear. It’s undecided whether Buterin used funds from memecoin sales for the “Free Alexey & Roman” defense campaign. However, it’s worth noting that Buterin has a pattern of selling memecoins to donate to charitable endeavors in the past.

In August, Vitalik Buterin sold all his 17.15 billion Neiro tokens for approximately 44.42 Ether, which was equivalent to around $119,000 at that time. He then donated about 200 Ether, worth around $532,398, to an animal welfare fund selected by the Neiro development team.

Tornado Cash Developers Retain Robust Support From Crypto Community 

Tornado Cash is a widely recognized decentralized service that anonymizes cryptocurrency transactions by scrambling their origin. Unfortunately, it has been exploited by criminal elements in the past for money laundering and disguising illegally obtained funds. This misuse of Tornado Cash resulted in the apprehension of Alexey Pertsev and Roman Storm by various national authorities, who accused them of facilitating money laundering through the creation, management, and endorsement of this platform.

To date, this regulatory action has faced strong resistance from the cryptocurrency community, who argue that developers do not have the authority to regulate individual use of a protocol and should not be held accountable for the misdeeds of rogue actors. Notably, Vitalik Buterin, along with other significant players in crypto like Matter Labs and Uniwao DAO, have made considerable contributions of $100,000 and $1.5 million respectively to a legal defense fund for these developers.

As a researcher delving into the realm of cryptocurrencies, these legal battles hold significant weight for many enthusiasts. A favorable verdict by the authorities could potentially deter developers from engaging in the crypto industry. Currently, data from Juicebox indicates that the defense fund for Alexey Pertsev stands at 56.19 ETH, equivalent to approximately $135,230. Moreover, an impressive pledge of 327.41 ETH, valued at around $787,967, has been made to support the defense of Roman Storm.

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2024-10-06 14:11