Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev released from prison
Date: 2025-02-10 Author: Oliver Abernathy Categories: BUSINESS
Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev was released from prison on February 7 and is now under house arrest pending further legal proceedings.
On February 6, a court in the Netherlands lifted his pretrial detention, which began in August 2022 and was extended in November 2024.
As part of his release, Pertsev is required to wear an electronic bracelet. “It’s not real freedom, but it’s still better than prison,” he wrote on social media.
Pertsev’s prosecution has raised concerns among digital privacy advocates, who say the case sets a dangerous precedent for developers of software that works with anonymity technologies.
In May 2024, the Court of Appeal in 's-Hertogenbosch found Pertsev guilty of money laundering and sentenced him to five years and four months in prison.
The judges issued the verdict despite the fact that the developers of Tornado Cash do not control the funds passing through the protocol.
Along with Pertsev's arrest, the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed sanctions on Tornado Cash. According to the regulator, more than $7 billion has been laundered through the service since its launch in 2019.
Among these funds is $455 million allegedly stolen by the North Korean hacker group Lazarus and transferred through Tornado Cash.
In November 2024, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that OFAC had exceeded its authority by imposing sanctions on Tornado Cash. The judges said the platform’s smart contracts were immutable code that could not be considered property.
And in January 2025, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas lifted OFAC sanctions against Tornado Cash in their entirety. This could be a major turning point in the regulation of technologies that ensure the privacy of digital transactions.
Like previous court decisions, the lifting of sanctions against Tornado Cash sets an important legal precedent that will affect the future of digital anonymity and financial regulation in the United States.
