Vitalik strongly supports Tornado Cash developers and condemns treating code as a criminal act.

Huoxun Finance reported on January 9th that, according to The Block, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin released a letter of support on Friday, strongly endorsing TornadoCash developer Roman Storm. Storm is currently awaiting sentencing in the United States after being convicted of conspiracy to transfer funds in August. Buterin believes the prosecution targets the software development process itself, not the direct financial harm it causes. He sees privacy tools like TornadoCash as a necessary defense against systemic data exploitation, and revealed that he has used Storm's software to purchase technical tools and support human rights charities, with the data not being recorded by businesses or governments. Buterin stated that he has always supported Storm's work, both because he firmly believes in the importance of privacy and because he is an active user of privacy tools. Unlike some who profit in the name of privacy and develop flashy but impractical software, Storm's applications remain functional even after years of neglect, making him more respectable than many "consumer tech" developers. Furthermore, Buterin places the Storm case within the broader debate on data protection, arguing that privacy should be a fundamental infrastructure, not a niche issue, and that modern privacy tools are designed to perpetuate protective measures that existed before the widespread adoption of digital surveillance.