Tornado Cash protocol developer Alexsey Pertsev, who was arrested in August 2022, has been awaiting judicial investigation and sentencing. According to the latest indictment, Dutch authorities have charged Tornado Cash with 36 money laundering transactions. However, the cryptocurrency industry has different opinions in response to these allegations.
(Previous summary:
Tornado Cash founder released on bail! Lawyers support: judicial treatment of developers is unfair)
(Supplementary background:
Tornado Cash founder charged with money laundering by the US Department of Justice, experts: “unreasonable in law” may undermine open-source beliefs)
Alexsey Pertsev, the developer of the Ethereum mixing protocol Tornado Cash, was arrested by Dutch authorities on August 10, 2022, for his involvement in concealing criminal funds and facilitating money laundering activities.
At that time, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Department of the Treasury announced sanctions on the cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash, casting a “regulatory shock” on open-source protocols and ordering the freezing of assets related to Tornado Cash.
Charged with $1.2 billion in money laundering
According to DL News, the recent indictment issued by Dutch judicial authorities states that Alexey Pertsev, the developer of the cryptocurrency mixing service Tornado Cash, is charged with participating in money laundering activities, involving a total amount of $1.2 billion.
The indictment lists 36 suspicious money laundering transactions on the Tornado Cash platform, including one transaction involving 175 ETH. This fund is believed to be related to the Ronin Bridge hack, which occurred in March 2022, causing the loss of up to 173,600 ETH and other assets from the background blockchain of the popular web3 game Axie Infinity, with a total value of $590 million.
Further reading:
The largest DeFi theft in history! Axie Infinity sidechain Ronin hacked for $620 million, SBF: Confirmed funds flowed into FTX
Alexey Pertsev is currently awaiting trial in the Netherlands for money laundering and other financial crime charges, scheduled to take place on March 26. Of particular concern is that the outcome of this case may have a significant impact on “decentralized protocols” in the industry.
Cryptocurrency industry: Open-source tools and authors are neutral
However, behind the legal charges faced by Pertsev, there have been different voices in the cryptocurrency industry. Many supporters and protesters of Pertsev believe that Tornado Cash, as a tool, is neutral, and the real issue lies with those who use it as a tool for criminal activities. They believe that responsibility should be attributed to individuals who abuse the platform for illegal behavior, rather than the platform itself or its developers.
In response to this, one of the co-founders of Bankless publicly supported Pertsev in February 2023:
Related reports
Detailed explanation of the EU MiCA Act: Becoming a global model for cryptocurrency regulation
Milestone! EU approves cryptocurrency regulation law “MiCA”, Binance CZ: Embracing the world’s largest market for Web3
The EU is studying Ethereum DeFi regulation, including data collection and monitoring, estimated to cost €250,000 in bidding.