The Arbitrum DAO has deleted a proposal on the protocol’s governance forum to fund Tornado Cash developers’ legal defense with nearly $1.3 million in ARB tokens.

The Arbitrum decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) appears to have revoked a proposal to fund the legal defense of Tornado Cash developers Roman Storm and Alexey Pertsev.

The proposal, which was submitted to the governance forum on March 8, called for allocating ARB tokens worth close to $1.3 million from the community wallet to establish a “robust legal defense” for the Tornado Cash developers. Now, both the forum post and the snapshot vote appear to have been removed.

So much for a dEceNTrAliZeD aUtONomoUs OrGanIzaTiOn 🤡

tl;dr: the Arbitrum community voted to fund legal defence for Tornado Cash devs (98.5% or $8M in stake voted “for”) and then the vote disappeared.

Who could’ve thought it wasn’t a DAO, but a classic bankster corporation 🤪 https://t.co/yih4SU1qIg pic.twitter.com/u7xI73SmKf

— Nikita Zhavoronkov (@nikzh) March 9, 2024

Sources familiar with the matter told The Block that the proposal had been deleted by its author, Arbitrum contributor Joseph Axisa, after some ARB holders raised concerns over whether the donation might pose legal risks for the protocol.

While the somewhat unceremonious disappearance of the proposal drew criticism from some members of the crypto community, the Arbitrum community is reportedly still considering alternative means to finance the Tornado Cash developers’ legal battles.

As per The Block, some of these methods include sending funds to Coin Centre, a non-profit focused on policy issues facing cryptocurrency, with sources saying that a new version of the proposal will likely appear on the Arbitrum DAO forum this week.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York charged Pertsev, and Tornado Cash’s third cofounder Roman Semenov with conspiracy to commit money laundering and sanctions violations in August 2023, roughly a year after the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Tornado Cash.

Pertsev was arrested in Amsterdam by the Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD) in 2022, while Storm, who is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Russia, was taken into custody by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in August 2023 and released a month later on a $2 million bond. Semenov pleaded not guilty to the charges alleged in a court appearance in September 2023.

A number of crypto firms have engaged in funding the developers’ legal defense over the last few months, with one appeal funded by major U.S. crypto exchange Coinbase. Earlier this month, however, a major community-led effort to fund the cause was set back when crowdfunding platform GoFundMe canceled a fundraiser dedicated to collecting legal fees.

GoFundMe returned funds to users who had donated towards the fundraiser, saying that collecting legal fees could “expose GoFundMe, its employees or users to any harm or liability of any type.”

The money we sent to @rstormsf was cancelled by @gofundme – they shut it down.

I thought this might happen but am still surprised.

Good thing we have an uncensorable money system so we can still fund civil liberties like the right to a fair trial.

Resending $10k with crypto. https://t.co/5Ud4ELiaK5 pic.twitter.com/glRXwtXPBw

— RYAN SΞAN ADAMS – rsa.eth (@RyanSAdams) February 15, 2024