Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin donated 320 ETH to crypto advocacy group Coin Center just hours after a US appeals court ruled that Treasury sanctions against Tornado Cash exceeded federal authority.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin transferred 320 ETH, worth approximately $1 million, to crypto policy think tank Coin Center on Tuesday evening. The donation came just hours after a landmark ruling by a US appeals court that overturned federal sanctions against the crypto mixing service Tornado Cash, handing the industry one of its most significant legal victories to date.
The Court Ruling
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) overstepped its authority when it sanctioned Tornado Cash in August 2022. At the heart of the case was whether Tornado Cash's immutable smart contracts, which operate autonomously on the Ethereum blockchain, constitute property belonging to a foreign national or entity under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).
The court determined they do not. Because the smart contracts are decentralised, self-executing, and not owned or controlled by any single party, they fall outside the scope of what OFAC can designate under existing sanctions law. The ruling effectively reverses the Treasury's position that open-source code deployed on a public blockchain can be treated the same as a foreign-owned asset.
Coin Center's Long Campaign
Coin Center, a Washington-based nonprofit focused on cryptocurrency policy, has been at the centre of the legal fight against the Tornado Cash sanctions since the beginning. The organisation filed suit against Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and other officials in October 2022, arguing that the sanctions were unconstitutional and exceeded OFAC's statutory authority. When a district court judge dismissed the case in 2023, Coin Center appealed.
The appeals court's decision vindicates Coin Center's legal theory and sets an important precedent for how decentralised protocols are treated under US sanctions law. The ruling does not address the criminal cases against Tornado Cash developers Roman Storm and Alexey Pertsev, which proceed on separate grounds, but it removes the legal basis for the blanket sanctions that made interacting with the protocol a federal offence for US persons.
Buterin's Continued Support
Buterin has been a consistent financial backer of crypto privacy causes. He has previously donated to the legal defence funds of Tornado Cash developers and has spoken publicly about the importance of on-chain privacy tools. The $1 million donation to Coin Center appears to be both a celebration of the legal win and a signal that the fight is not over. The Treasury Department could seek to appeal the ruling, and the broader regulatory landscape for privacy-preserving protocols remains uncertain.
Coin Center executive director Jerry Brito has described the ruling as a major step forward but has cautioned that continued advocacy and litigation funding will be essential. With the incoming Trump administration signalling a more crypto-friendly regulatory posture, there is cautious optimism in the industry that the political environment may be shifting. Buterin's donation suggests he is not waiting to find out.
