The Ethereum Foundation (EF) and the Keyring Network are collaborating to establish a legal defense fund to support the creators of Tornado Cash, Roman Storm and Alexey Pertsev, who are criminally charged with developing privacy-protecting software.
The initiative is launched by Keyring’s “Developer Legal Defense Fund” and is designed to safeguard open-source developers from criminal liability merely for producing code that sustains digital privacy. As per the official portal, the fund aims to offer structural and financial assistance to developers that are at risk legally because of their efforts in building privacy tools.
The fund works through zkVerified vaults on Avalanche and Ethereum, and users have the option to deposit USDC and earn yield and have the protocol fees earned over two months go toward the legal defense fund. Members need to go through a brief private verification process via Keyring Connect in order to access the vaults.
To date, as of October 10, 2025, the program has raised $22,109.52 in funds, all of which will be used for the defense of Storm and Pertsev, as well as for the general Tornado Cash legal defense work.
Roman Storm was just convicted by a Manhattan federal jury on charges of conspiracy to run an unlicensed money transmitting business, with a top sentence of five years. The jury was not able to agree, however, on two other counts — conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate U.S. sanctions. Prosecutors claim Tornado Cash enabled laundering of more than $1 billion, including money related to North Korean hacker teams. Storm’s defense asserts that Tornado Cash is independent and that he never had control over its usage.
Alexey Pertsev was previously convicted in May 2024 in the Netherlands and sentenced to 64 months in prison on related charges. He has since been released from pretrial imprisonment and is appealing the conviction. In early February, the Ethereum Foundation contributed $1.25 million towards Pertsev’s defense, stressing that “privacy is normal, and writing code is not a crime.” The EF also offered to match up to $500,000 in community contributions to fund Storm’s appeal after his conviction.
The Ethereum Foundation’s participation in this new legal defense fund is a more institutionalized form of developer advocacy. It moves beyond monetary contributions by integrating legal defense into a decentralized finance system — essentially turning advocacy into a sustaining ecosystem for the defense of developer rights.
Roman Storm is preparing his appeal and Pertsev is pressing on with his fight in court. The decisions in these cases have the potential to define the future of privacy tools and developer liability throughout the blockchain space. The Ethereum Foundation and Keyring’s initiative represents a turning point in the effort to maintain the principle that coding for privacy is not a crime.
