Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev is set to be released from prison after a Dutch court suspended his “pretrial detention” as he prepares to appeal his money laundering conviction.
Pertsev said in a Feb. 6 statement to X that while he will no longer be in jail, his release is not “real freedom” as he would still be required to be under electronic monitoring.
“A Dutch court suspended my pretrial detention under the condition of electronic monitoring. This will give me a chance to work on my appeal and fight for justice,” he said.
Pertsev’s release date is scheduled for Feb. 7 at 9 am UTC or 10 am local time. Pertsev has been serving detention in the Netherlands since August 2022.
Source: Alexey Pertsev
Pertsev argued during his trial that he could not be held liable for the actions of those who used the Tornado Cash protocol for nefarious or illegal purposes.
The court rejected this, saying that Pertsev and the other Tornado Cash co-founders should have taken more stringent measures to prevent criminal use.
Pertsev, a Russian national and resident of the Netherlands, was found guilty of money laundering by a Dutch court on May 14 and was sentenced to five years and four months behind bars.
Lawyers acting for Pertsev immediately filed an appeal, and he has been in pre-trial detention ever since. He was denied bail again in July after previously being knocked back twice.
The US charged Roman Storm and fellow co-founder Roman Semenov in August 2023, accusing them of helping launder over $1 billion in crypto through Tornado Cash. Semenov is still at large and on the FBI’s most wanted list.
Storm is free on a $2 million bond and expected to face trial in April. The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Tornado Cash in August 2022, which led to the arrest of the two founders. A US court overturned the sanctions on Jan. 21.
Related: Tornado Cash dev wants charges dropped after court said OFAC ‘overstepped’
In a Jan. 22 post on X, Storm said he was being “prosecuted for writing open-source code that enables private crypto transactions in a completely non-custodial manner.”
Tornado Cash is a non-custodial crypto mixing protocol, meaning it never holds or controls the funds. Many see the prosecution of the platform’s founders as having wider ramifications for crypto and software development.
Source: Roman Storm
Storm argued his prosecution is a “terrifying criminalization of privacy” that threatens to “criminalize software development itself.”
“This case has already had a chilling effect on developers working on software tools,” he said.
Crypto developer Michael Lewellen filed a Jan. 16 lawsuit against the US Department of Justice, saying its interpretation of money-transmitting laws in the Tornado Cash case meant he could face charges if he released his software.
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