The Ethereum co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, has publicly endorsed Roman Storm, a developer convicted of money laundering in 2025. Buterin argues that privacy-preserving software is a fundamental human right and that Storm's work should not be criminalized due to potential misuse. Buterin has personally used Storm's software and believes in the importance of privacy, stating that it is an essential protection against exploitation in the 21st century. The case has become a global test case for open-source developers, with the U.S. Treasury sanctioning Tornado Cash, a crypto mixer used by North Korea's Lazarus Group and other criminals to launder billions of dollars in stolen digital assets. Despite the sanctions, the Ethereum Foundation pledged $1.25 million toward Alexey Pertsev's legal defense, another Tornado Cash developer who faced criminal proceedings and was found guilty of laundering $1.2 billion in illicit assets. Buterin emphasizes the necessity of privacy for societal functioning, warning against the potential for government databases to be hacked and information to fall into the hands of foreign adversaries. He advocates for the protection of individual rights and the preservation of privacy as an unquestioned default in the next millennium.
