:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/dlnews/KDCGPP6ZFBC3VNTGFHO74YFPAE.jpg)
The trial against Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev inches closer, but it won’t be this year.
In a hearing in the Dutch city of Den Bosch today, a district court ruled Pertsev will face money-laundering charges for his role with the crypto mixer next year at the earliest.
No trial date has been scheduled, but the calendar is full for the rest of 2023, the court found.
Today, his lawyers and the prosecutors are weighing the evidence against him and requested further investigations before the trial. They will also discuss Pertsev’s residence status in the Netherlands, which is set to expire in July. Pertsev is a Russian national.
NOW READ: ‘Not over yet’: Tornado Cash attack rages on with $1m in jeopardy
It’s a really important case because many, many people write code that other people might use for good or bad purposes’
Crypto watchers and privacy advocates are expected to pay close attention to the case, which could determine the future of developers’ culpability in the projects they help design.
“If this is a prosecution based solely on writing code that other people misuse, then it’s a really important case because many, many people write code that other people might use for good or bad purposes,” Cindy Cohn, executive director of digital rights group Electronic Frontiers Foundation, told DL News before the hearing.
Speech defence
She said she is frustrated over prosecutors’ failure to provide “clarity to the millions of people around the world who are worried that they might actually be at risk” because of their contribution to other open-source projects.
Her statement echoed the so-called code is speech defence that equates writing code to free speech.
However, Kyle Langvardt, assistant professor of law at the University of Nebraska College of Law, recently told DL News that this defence is “probably worthless in court,” at least in the US.
NOW READ: Code is not speech: ‘Wild theories’ won’t protect DeFi developer Alexey Pertsev
Similar arguments have been repeated ever since Pertsev was arrested in the Netherlands in August.
It follows sanctions of Tornado Cash from the US Treasury over allegations that criminals used the protocol to launder billions of dollars’ worth of illicit funds including those of North Korean cybercriminals.
The case has also highlighted how Dutch authorities have grown increasingly wary of criminal uses of crypto after a quarter of the 1.2 million suspicious transactions reported to the Netherlands Financial Intelligence Unit in 2021, stemmed from crypto asset service providers.
Money laundering
The agency has singled out Bitcoin mixers as an indicator of money laundering after the first court case involving the phenomenon in the Netherlands in 2018.
Privacy advocates like Cohn have countered that mixers represent “an attempt to try to regain some basic privacy in people’s financial transactions and that is not illegal and indeed the right to privacy is itself.
“That’s something that is well protected in European law,” Cohn said.
For marginalised and vulnerable groups, the privacy granted by mixers could be a matter of life and death, she said.
Community developers are worried the protocol is prone to more damage.
If there is evidence proving Pertsev’s involvement in money laundering, this case loses its significance as it will simply be “another flavour” of what financial crime can look like, Cohn said.
Tracking monitor
Pertsev was released in April following eight months in jail and is currently under house arrest with a tracking monitor tied to his ankle.
Today’s court appearance will come just days after the Tornado Cash network was hit by an attack where attackers took control over the tokens held in its governance protocol.
Community developers are worried the protocol is prone to more damage.
A previous version of this story used a photo of a person that wasn’t Pertsev.
Do you have a tip about Tornado Cash, regulation or another story? Reach out to me at inbar@dlnews.com.