Vitalik has once again made a donation, this time donating 30 ETH to the “Free Alexey Roman” project on Juicebox. This marks Vitalik’s second donation to the project, as he previously donated 12.6 ETH on January 23rd. “Alexey Roman” refers to Tornado Cash developers Alexey Pertsev and Roman Storm.
Vitalik’s previous donation was for AssangeDAO, which aimed to help free WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Vitalik donated 10 ETH to the cause. This time, Vitalik has donated a total of 42.6 ETH to support Alexey and Roman, highlighting his concern for the Tornado Cash case.
Since its launch in 2019, Tornado Cash has faced multiple regulatory challenges due to its involvement in money laundering cases. As the largest mixer on the Ethereum network, Tornado Cash has always played a significant role in the DeFi regulatory discussion. Following Roman Storm’s arrest last year, discussions surrounding the sentencing of the remaining founders are still ongoing.
On May 14th, Alexey Pertsev was officially convicted and sentenced to 64 months in prison. The arrest of Pertsev has sparked strong protests from the cryptocurrency community, especially the developer community, who are concerned that his charges could set a dangerous precedent for software developers. In addition to Vitalik, Pertsev has received support in various forms, including petitions, lawyer fundraisers, and statements declaring his innocence from protocols that have been hacked.
Roman Storm’s trial is scheduled for September, and the funds raised by “Free Alexey Roman” will be used to support the legal defense fund for both individuals. The project has currently raised 589 ETH.
Juicebox, as an automated crowdfunding platform, can raise funds for any project on its platform. In a way, Juicebox can be seen as the “savior” for Alexey and Roman. Most projects launched on Juicebox take the form of DAOs. In mid-November 2021, a project called ConstitutionDAO successfully gained attention through Juicebox.
At that time, the world’s top auction house, Sotheby’s, was auctioning an official first edition print of the US Constitution. This was the only surviving copy held by a private collector, and Sotheby’s valued it between $15 million and $20 million. ConstitutionDAO was created to acquire this constitution through crowdfunding. In just 6 days, ConstitutionDAO successfully raised over 10,000 ETH, equivalent to around $43 million.
This fundraising campaign received support from well-known institutions in the cryptocurrency trading platform, such as Gemini, Coinbase, and a16z. As participation in the Sotheby’s auction required fiat currency, FTX US President Brett Harrison expressed that FTX is willing to provide cryptocurrency-to-fiat exchange services for ConstitutionDAO.
The ETH donated to ConstitutionDAO was converted into an equivalent amount of PEOPLE tokens, and the hype around PEOPLE sparked the meme+DAO trend. People began searching for the next similar project, and FreeRossDAO appeared at the right time.
As the name suggests, FreeRossDAO aims to release Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the “Silk Road” dark web marketplace. On the “Silk Road,” users could anonymously purchase illegal items such as firearms and drugs, as well as support bitcoin transactions. At that time, Bitcoin had only been around for a year, and the “Silk Road” became the first e-commerce platform to support bitcoin transactions globally. It can be said that Ross played a crucial role in promoting Bitcoin.
In 2013, founder Ross was arrested and convicted of conspiracy to commit money laundering, computer hacking, drug trafficking, and running a criminal enterprise. He was sentenced to life in prison, plus an additional 40 years. Despite being a criminal, FreeRossDAO raised 2,836 ETH through Juicebox to purchase Ross’s NFT collection, the Ross Ulbricht Genesis Collection.
FreeRossDAO promised ROSS tokens to donors, which were later renamed to FREE tokens. The word “free,” with its meme-like attributes, seemed to become a new narrative on Juicebox.
Among them, AssangeDAO was created to “free Assange.” Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, was charged with 18 counts and sentenced to 175 years in prison. AssangeDAO was established during the Chinese New Year holiday in 2022 and quickly gained popularity, raising approximately 14,890 ETH in just a few days. The DAO aims to raise ETH in exchange for JUSTICE governance tokens to bid for a 1/1 NFT created by digital artist Pak in collaboration with Julian Assange.
From PEOPLE to FREE to JUSTICE, each fundraising campaign has been accompanied by the hype around a meme coin. Perhaps this ETH donation to support Alexey and Roman will bring forth a new meme narrative.
It is worth noting that due to the impact of the US election, former President Donald Trump has expressed the possibility of pardoning Ross and Assange if he is elected. These statements have brought attention back to the FREE and JUSTICE tokens, and it remains to be seen how much impact this new donation DAO on Juicebox will have.
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