Original author: Lucy
Vitalik donated again, this time he donated 30 ETH to a project called "Free Alexey & Roman" on Juicebox. This is also the second time Vitalik has donated to a project, having previously donated 12.6 ETH on January 23.
“Alexey & Roman” refers to Tornado Cash developers Alexey Pertsev and Roman Storm.
The last time Vitalik made a move was for AssangeDAO. To rescue Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, Vitalik donated 10 ETH. This time, Vitalik donated a total of 42.6 ETH to Alexey and Roman, which shows his attention to the Tornado Cash case.
Since its launch in 2019, Tornado Cash has been involved in regulatory crises several times due to suspected money laundering. As the most in-demand mixer on Ethereum, the Tornado Cash case has always had a place in DeFi regulatory issues. Following the arrest of Roman Storm last year, the topic of sentencing of the remaining founders continues.
Related reading: " Found guilty! What does the Tornado Cash case ruling mean for DeFi regulation? "
On May 14, Alexey Pertsev was formally found guilty and sentenced to 64 months in prison. The crypto community, especially the developer community, strongly protested Pertsev's arrest, and they were worried that the charges against Pertsev could set a dangerous precedent for the conviction of software developers. In addition to Vitalik, Pertsev has won various support, including petitions, lawyers' fundraising, and statements from the hacked protocols declaring his innocence.
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 of the two. The project has currently raised 589 ETH.
From auctioning the Constitution to releasing criminals, are new memes coming?
As an automated crowdfunding platform, Juicebox can raise funds for any project on it. In a sense, Juicebox can be said to be the "savior" of Alexey and Roman.
Most of the projects launched on Juicebox are presented in the form of DAO. In mid-November 2021, a project called ConstitutionDAO successfully made Juicebox popular.
At that time, the world's top auction house Sotheby's was auctioning an official first edition of the U.S. Constitution, which was the only existing copy in the hands of a private collector. Sotheby's valued it at between $15 million and $20 million, and ConstitutionDAO was born to bid for this Constitution. In just 6 days, ConstitutionDAO successfully raised more than 10,000 ETH, equivalent to about $43 million, through the Juicebox fundraising platform.
The fundraising received support from well-known institutions such as cryptocurrency trading platform Gemini, Coinbase, and a16z. And because the Sotheby's auction requires the use of fiat currency, FTX US President Brett Harrison said that FTX is also willing to provide ConstitutionDAO with cryptocurrency and fiat currency exchange services.
Related reading: " They raised $40 million worldwide in 6 days just to buy the U.S. Constitution "
The ETH donated to ConstitutionDAO was exchanged for the corresponding number of PEOPLE tokens. For a time, the hype of PEOPLE triggered the charm of meme+DAO. People began to look for the next similar project, and FreeRossDAO appeared at the right time.
The narrative of FreeRossDAO is just as its name suggests, which is to release Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the Silk Road Dark Web e-commerce platform.
On the Silk Road, in addition to anonymously purchasing guns, drugs and other prohibited items that were available throughout the platform, you could also trade in Bitcoin. At that time, Bitcoin had only been around for a year, and the Silk Road became the world's first e-commerce platform to support Bitcoin trading. It can be said that Ross played an indispensable role in promoting Bitcoin.
In 2013, founder Ross was arrested and convicted of conspiracy to launder money, computer hacking, drug smuggling, and operating a criminal enterprise, and was sentenced to life in prison, plus an additional 40 years. In order to release this criminal early, FreeRossDAO raised 2,836 ETH through Juicebox to bid for Ross's NFT collection, Ross Ulbricht Genesis Collection.
Related reading: " Can FreeRossDAO replicate PEOPLE's success? "
FreeRossDAO promised ROSS tokens to donors, and ROSS was later renamed FREE. The more meme-like word "free" also seems to have become a new narrative on Juicebox.
Among them, AssangeDAO is a DAO created to "free Assange". Julian Assange was charged with 18 counts and sentenced to 175 years in prison for exposing a large amount of confidential information through Wikileaks, which he founded.
AssangeDAO was created during the 2022 Spring Festival and quickly became popular, raising about 14,890 ETH in just a few days. The DAO aims to raise ETH in exchange for JUSTICE governance tokens to bid for 1/1 NFTs produced by digital artist Pak in collaboration with Julian Assange.
From PEOPLE to FREE to JUSTICE, every fundraising is accompanied by the hype of a meme coin. Perhaps the ETH raised this time to support Alexey and Roman will also bring the next new meme narrative.
It is worth noting that, influenced by the US election, former US President Donald Trump has said that he may pardon Ross and Assange after his election. This statement has caused FREE and JUSTICE tokens to rise in price and return to the public eye. Let’s see how much influence Juicebox’s new donation DAO can bring.
