The Arbitrum DAO is currently voting on a proposal to provide financial support for the legal defense costs of Tornado Cash’s developers. If approved, the community plans to donate up to 600,000 ARB tokens, equivalent to almost $1.3 million at present.
The proposal, submitted on March 7 by delegate DK, aims to fund a strong legal defense for Roman Storm and Alexey Pertsev, the creators of Tornado Cash. Additionally, the funds may be used to promote awareness about privacy-preserving technologies and the legal challenges faced by developers through public relations and advocacy efforts.
The proposal outlines three voting tiers that correspond to different funding levels, ranging from 200,000 to 600,000 ARB tokens. Currently, the majority of votes have been cast in favor of the highest funding tier. The voting deadline is March 14.
The accusations against Tornado Cash and its founders revolve around allegations that the platform facilitated the laundering of over $1 billion in illegal funds, including money connected to the North Korean hacking group Lazarus Group. Consequently, Tornado Cash has faced significant legal actions, such as being added to the United States sanctions lists. This effectively prohibits residents of the country from using the service and has sparked controversy within the cryptocurrency community.
Supporters of Tornado Cash argue that the platform merely provides software for decentralized money transmission and does not engage directly in money transmission itself. This challenges the basis of the charges against the developers. Coin Center, a crypto advocacy group, points out that the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) guidelines state that an anonymizing software provider should not be classified as a money transmitter.
Storm and Pertsev are facing multiple charges from U.S. authorities, including conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to commit sanctions violations, and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business. The first two charges carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison each, while the charge for operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business is punishable by up to five years in prison.
The community proposal comes shortly after the cancellation of a GoFundMe campaign that aimed to collect funds for Storm and Pertsev’s legal fees. GoFundMe cited a violation of their terms of service that could potentially expose the platform, its employees, or users to harm or liability.
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