The Solana Policy Institute (SPI) has announced a $500,000 donation to the legal defense funds of Roman Storm and Alexey Pertsev, the developers behind the sanctioned Tornado Cash crypto mixer. This contribution comes as Storm was convicted in August 2025 on conspiracy charges for operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business, while Pertsev received a 64-month prison sentence in the Netherlands for money laundering.
SPI CEO Miller Whitehouse-Levine characterized the prosecutions as setting a "chilling precedent that threatens the software development industry," arguing that neither developer took custody of user assets nor maintained control over the protocol after deployment. The Ethereum Foundation previously pledged $500,000 to Storm's legal defense fund, which has raised over $4.7 million toward a $7 million target.
Storm faces up to five years in prison on the money-transmitting conviction, with potentially decades more if prosecutors retry him on deadlocked charges of money laundering conspiracy and sanctions violations. The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Tornado Cash in August 2022, alleging that $7 billion had been laundered through the platform since 2019, including frequent use by North Korea's Lazarus Group hackers.
Legal experts and the Free Pertsev & Storm organization worry that the precedent could criminalize open-source development more broadly across the crypto ecosystem. SPI also signed a letter this week with more than 100 crypto organizations urging lawmakers to shield software developers from criminal liability as Congress debates new digital asset legislation.