From August 2022, Tornado Cash has experienced a series of regulatory events and has caused great controversy in the crypto 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 crypto field in the future.
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Tornado developer Alexey Pertsev faces five years and four months in prison
Regulatory events of Tornado Cash, the mixing protocol
Tornado developer Alexey Pertsev faces five years and four months in prison
According to CoinDesk, Dutch prosecutors have revealed that Alexey Pertsev, the developer of Tornado Cash, will be sentenced to 64 months in prison for money laundering. The indictment accuses Alexey Pertsev of laundering over $1.2 billion through the Tornado protocol from July 2019 to August 10, 2022.
After a two-day trial, the judge will make the final verdict on May 14.
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Dutch authorities prosecute Tornado Cash developer for laundering over $1.2 billion: Members profited from it
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Regulatory events of Tornado Cash, the mixing protocol
From August 2022, Tornado Cash has experienced a series of regulatory events and has caused great controversy in the crypto 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 crypto 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 cooperate with the review and stop packaging related transactions.
September 14, 2023:
The U.S. Treasury Department responds and agrees to consider individual transactions. User transactions that do not involve sanctionable behavior can apply to retrieve stranded funds.
April 2023:
After eight months, Tornado Cash developer is released from custody and under house arrest. TORN rises by over 30%.
In addition to the trial in the Netherlands, the U.S. Department of Justice also filed charges against the two co-founders of Tornado Cash, Roman Semenov and Roman Storm, last year. Roman Semenov has been arrested by the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division, while Roman Storm is still at large.
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Co-founder of Tornado Cash arrested, U.S. Department of Justice: Indirectly assisted North Korea in developing nuclear weapons
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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%