SPI Backs Tornado Cash Devs with $500K Legal Fund, Says ‘Writing Code Is Not a Crime’

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 ￰1￱ donation 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 ￰2￱ 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 it was ￰3￱ has donated $500,000 to the legal defense of Roman Storm and Alexey Pertsev, the developers of Tornado ￰4￱ code is not a crime. ￰0￱ — Solana (@solana) August 28, 2025 Ethereum Foundation Leads Industry Support for Privacy Developer Defense The Ethereum Foundation previously pledged $500,000 to Storm’s legal defense fund, which has raised over $4.7 million toward an ambitious $7 million ￰5￱ co-executive director Hsiao-Wei Wang stated that “ privacy is normal, and writing code is not a crime ” while calling upon the broader crypto community to contribute additional ￰6￱ 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 ￰7￱ ￰8￱ 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 ￰9￱ prosecutors characterized Storm as someone who profited from “ hiding dirty money for criminals ,” while defense teams argued the protocol was designed as a privacy tool for legitimate ￰10￱ many others, crypto lawyer Jake Chervinsky criticized Storm’s conviction as “ a sad day for DeFi, ” arguing that Section 1960 should not apply to developers of non-custodial protocols who lack control over user ￰11￱ Storm was convicted for conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business under Section ￰12￱ jury was deadlocked on money laundering and ￰13￱ will decide in the coming days if it wants to retry those charges in a new trial.

A sad day for DeFi. — Jake Chervinsky (@jchervinsky) August 6, 2025 The Free Pertsev & Storm organization and legal experts worry that the precedent could criminalize open-source development more broadly across the crypto ecosystem. Cross-Border Evidence Challenges Complicate Crypto Prosecutions Most recently, Storm’s defense revealed major problems with the government’s evidence collection from Dutch authorities following Pertsev’s arrest in the ￰14￱ FBI’s extraction of what prosecutors claimed was Pertsev’s phone was missing author information for forwarded messages and showed incomplete file ￰15￱ misattributed Telegram message carried real consequences when Assistant ￰16￱ Ben Arad referenced it during pretrial hearings, telling the judge it demonstrated the co-founders’ awareness of ￰17￱ Storm’s favor, defense attorneys characterized this as providing “ false information ” to both the court and potentially the grand jury that issued the ￰18￱ it stands now, Tornado Cash users, developers, and crypto executives continue challenging Treasury sanctions in court, arguing that immutable smart contracts should not be subject to OFAC ￰19￱ Analysis Points to SOL Recovery Amid Latest Donation Solana’s price action has formed another golden cross pattern on the SOL/BTC ratio at 0.0018841, where the 50-day moving average has crossed above the 200-day average.) August 28, 2025 Short-term price action shows SOL testing a key ascending trendline that has provided support throughout the current advance.

A successful hold of the ascending trendline support, combined with momentum building, could target the $235 resistance level. Conversely, failure below $210 might trigger a deeper ￰20￱ golden cross pattern provides the most compelling bullish argument; however, investors should expect initial volatility before any sustained advance materializes, potentially leading to new highs above $260.