Tornado Cash Supporters Riled as GoFundMe Halts Campaign Fund

• The Tornado Cash GoFundMe campaign fund has been shut down.
• The crowdfunding campaign was used to receive donations to aid the co-founders’ legal defense.
• Tornado Cash’s supporters have raised concerns and demanded answers from GoFundMe.

Tornado Cash, the infamous crypto mixer led by co-founders Alexey Pertsev, Roman Storm, and Roman Semenov, has been ensnared in a year-long legal tussle with U.S authorities, for facilitating illicit financial activities for sanctioned organizations. The unfolding legal debacle led the founders to turn to their crypto community for support, prompting the launch of a fundraiser to aid their legal defense.

However, things took a different turn when the crowdfunding platform, GoFundMe, shut the campaign, stirring a ruckus among supporters.

GoFundMe Shuts Tornado Cash’s Donations

On Wednesday, a Tornado Cash activist group announced that the fundraising platform GoFundMe canceled the donation campaign for Roman Storm and Alexey Pertsev.

The crowdfunding platform cited its terms of service that reserves the right to take action against any activity it deems “unacceptable or objectionable,”  which could expose the company, its employees, or its users to any type of harm or liability.

Important campaign update:

Yesterday, @gofundme notified the campaign organizers that the fundraiser for @rstormsf's legal defense was cancelled. They cite Term 22 of their terms of service, which can be interpreted to mean they simply didn’t like the fundraiser. pic.twitter.com/xqEFZ9Ncd5

— Free Pertsev & Storm (@FreeAlexeyRoman) February 14, 2024

More than the $30,000 donations amassed up to that point were promised to be refunded within a three to seven day period. The move was, however, not well received by the activist group, which asserted that GoFundMe “simply didn’t like the fundraiser.”

Tornado Cash Supporters Seek Answers

Highlighting numerous similar cases in which the crowdfunding platform had served as a channel for legal defense donations, the activist group ‘FreePertsev&Storm’ questioned GoFundMe for canceling the Tornado Cash’s campaign fund. 

Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm also reshared a post by crypto investor Ryan Adams, who raised concerns over the abrupt halt and reiterated the need for “uncensorable money.”

The money we sent to @rstormsf was cancelled by @gofundme – they shut it down.

I thought this might happen but am still surprised.

Good thing we have an uncensorable money system so we can still fund civil liberties like the right to a fair trial.

Resending $10k with crypto. https://t.co/5Ud4ELiaK5 pic.twitter.com/glRXwtXPBw

— RYAN SΞAN ADAMS – rsa.eth (@RyanSAdams) February 15, 2024

Ryan Adams re-pledged his donation of $10,000 and encouraged others to do the same. Other channels including a platform called Juicebox have since been raised by the group and supporters to chart the course of the campaign. 

To find out more about the charges against the Tornado Cash founders, read here:
Tornado Cash Founders Face Court over “Assisted Laundering”

Read more about the potential independent monitor for Binance post-DOJ settlement:
Will Binance Get FTX Bankruptcy Firm as DOJ Watchdog?