Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev to remain in jail until February
Alexey Pertsev, a developer of the now-sanctioned crypto mixer Tornado Cash, has been ordered to stay in jail until Feb. 20 at least, Dutch public prosecutor Martine Boerlage ruled at Tuesday’s hearing.
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Fast facts
For the first time since his arrest, Pertsev was officially accused of money laundering charges, due to contributing to the Tornado Cash protocol’s code.
The court in the Netherlands found that the Russian developer represented a flight risk and denied releasing him on bail.
Boerlage refused to entertain arguments about the protocol’s decentralization, alleging that Persev and others were in control of the crypto mixer.
The prosecutor also accused Pertsev, along with two other developers Semenov and Storm, of holding so many governance tokens that they could “always outvote everyone else,” in governance proposals.
Pertsev was arrested in August, a few days after the U.S. Treasury sanctioned the Tornado Cash protocol for allegedly being used by North Korean hackers to launder over a billion dollars worth of digital assets.
Pertsev’s case has sparked concern among Web 3.0 and open-source software developers, as other developers could also be held responsible for how their code is used.
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