Tornado Developer Alexey Pertsev Faces Five Years and Four Months of Prosecution, Encryption Developers Encounter Challenges?

Starting from August 2022, a series of regulatory events have occurred with Tornado Cash, causing significant controversy in the cryptocurrency field. The developer, Alexey Pertsev, has been imprisoned and under house arrest for over 280 days. The outcome of this lawsuit may also pose a threat to open-source developers in the cryptocurrency field in the future.

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Tornado Developer Alexey Pertsev Faces Five Years and Four Months
Regulatory Events Surrounding Tornado Cash Protocol
Tornado Developer Alexey Pertsev Faces Five Years and Four Months
According to CoinDesk, Dutch prosecutors have revealed that Alexey Pertsev, the developer of Tornado Cash, will be sentenced to 64 months of imprisonment for money laundering charges.

The indictment accuses Alexey Pertsev of laundering over $1.2 billion through the Tornado protocol between July 2019 and August 10, 2022.

After a two-day trial in court, the judge will deliver the final verdict on May 14.
(
Dutch Authorities Prosecute Tornado Cash Developer for Laundering Over $1.2 Billion: Members Profited
)
Regulatory Events Surrounding Tornado Cash Protocol
Starting from August 2022, a series of regulatory events have occurred with Tornado Cash, causing significant controversy in the cryptocurrency field. The developer, Alexey Pertsev, has been imprisoned and under house arrest for over 280 days.

The outcome of this lawsuit may also pose a threat to open-source developers in the cryptocurrency field in the future. The related events are as follows:

August 8, 2023:
Tornado.cash is sanctioned by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
August 12, 2023:
Developer Alexey Pertsev is arrested.
August 20, 2023:
Mining pools and protocols begin to cooperate with the review, suspending the packaging of related transactions.
September 14, 2023:
The U.S. Treasury Department responds, agreeing to consider individual transactions. User transactions not involving sanctionable behavior can apply to retrieve stranded funds.
April 2023:
After eight months, Tornado Cash developer is released from detention and placed under house arrest. TORN surges over 30%.

In addition to the trial in the Netherlands, the U.S. Department of Justice also filed charges last year against two co-founders of Tornado Cash, Roman Semenov and Roman Storm. Roman Semenov has been arrested by the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division, while Roman Storm is still at large.
(
Co-founder of Tornado Cash Arrested, U.S. Department of Justice: Indirectly Assisting North Korea’s Nuclear Development
)
Alexey Pertsev
Tornado.Cash

Further Reading
BlackRock Tokenized Fund BUIDL Receives Funding from Tornado Cash
Binance Announces Delisting of Tornado Cash, TORN Plummets Over 50%