Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin alongside others in the crypto community are calling for Ethereum developer Virgil Griffith and Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm to be freed.
"No man left behind," Buterin posted Wednesday morning on X, and also asked for Tornado Cash co-founder Alexey Pertsev to be freed.
The Ethereum community's asks comes just hours after Trump signed an executive order to pardon Ross Ulbricht, who was serving a multiple life sentence without the possibility of parole for creating and operating Silk Road, a darknet market that facilitated the sale of narcotics and other illegal products and services. Bitcoiners had been petitioned for his sentence to be commuted for years.
Griffith was sentenced to 56 months in prison after pleading guilty to sanctions violations in 2021. U.S. prosecutors said he violated sanctions law when he traveled to North Korea in 2019 to "deliver a presentation and technical advice on using cryptocurrency and blockchain technology to evade sanctions."
Storm was charged in 2023 with conspiracy to commit money laundering and sanctions violations in operating Tornado Cash. Storm has tried to dismiss the charges, citing First Amendment violations, and his trial was later delayed. Storm posted about his situation on Wednesday, which received responses from many in the crypto community tagging Trump and billionaire Elon Musk.
In a post on Wednesday, Storm said Buterin has been trying to help him and Pertsev over the past two and a half years.
"You created Tornado in significant part because of my suggestion that it is something worth building," Buterin said in response. "It would violate basic honor for me to do that, and then fail to support you in your hour of need. In Ethereum we protect our own, and uphold our honor."
Tornado Cash has been a focus for U.S. federal regulators and lawmakers over the years. The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, designated Tornado Cash as a sanctioned entity in August 2022, barring people in the U.S. and firms looking to operate in the U.S. from financial interactions with it. Critics in the crypto industry argued Tornado Cash is not a person, but a software, and criticized Treasury's move and argued it didn't have the authority to sanction the mixer.
In August, a district court sided with the Treasury, but later in November, a U.S. appeals court ruled that OFAC "overstepped" its authority when sanctioning Tornado Cash. This week, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas ordered the sanctions on Tornado Cash to be reversed.
The Trump team did not respond to a request for comment.
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