PANews reported on January 29 that Matt Huang, co-founder of crypto venture capital firm Paradigm, announced that the company will donate $1.25 million to support Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm's legal defense against U.S. prosecution.

“The prosecutors’ case, which threatens to hold software developers criminally liable for the bad behavior of third parties, will have a chilling effect on the cryptocurrency sector and beyond, and we must stand with Storm in this fight,” Huang wrote on X on Wednesday.

Storm co-founded the Ethereum-based cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash with Roman Semenov, and both were indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2023 on money laundering-related charges.

Prosecutors allege Storm “knowingly assisted” in laundering more than $1 billion in illicit funds on cryptocurrency mixers, including funds linked to the North Korean cybercrime group Lazarus. The Tornado Cash founders each face up to 45 years in prison.