Tornado Cash Co-Founder Released From Prison, Plans to Focus on Appeal

After Donald Trump pardoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, calls from the crypto community for the release of the Tornado Cash co-founders surged, drawing significant attention. This momentum led to the release of Alex Pertsev, a developer of the cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash, from pretrial detention in the Netherlands. Facing money laundering charges, Pertsev has been released under electronic monitoring, enabling him to prepare his appeal.

TORN Rallies As Regulator Releases Tornado Co-founder

Alex Pertsev, co-founder of the cryptocurrency mixing service Tornado Cash, has announced that a Dutch court has put a hold on his pretrial detention and allowed him to switch to electronic monitoring as he gets ready to appeal.

Alex said, “Freedom is priceless, but my freedom cost a lot of money. My house arrest was only possible thanks to the work of lawyers, who were paid from your donations. My fight is not over yet and for a final and confident victory I still need your help.”

The announcement led to a surge in the price of Tornado Cash’s token, TORN, which jumped nearly 20% before settling at $13.72.

Dutch authorities arrested Alex Pertsev in August 2022 following U.S. sanctions against Tornado Mixer and its developers. Pertsev faced charges of facilitating money laundering and being negligent in preventing illegal financial activities on the platform.

In May 2024, a Dutch court sentenced Pertsev to five years in prison, finding that his involvement with Tornado Cash helped launder criminal funds. The court acknowledged that Tornado Cash could be a neutral tool, but stated that developers had a responsibility to prevent its misuse.

After his arrest, the Russian national began actively appealing his conviction and requesting bail. Despite several attempts, his bail requests were continually denied. His defense argues that he merely created open-source software and should not be criminalized for how others choose to use it.

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Debate Continues Over Developer’s Liability

On November 26, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals directed the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to remove addresses linked to Tornado Cash from its list of blocked individuals and entities.

This decision was viewed as a major victory for Pertsev and Roman Storm, another developer of Tornado Cash who was arrested in August 2023 and is awaiting trial.

The court noted that sanctioning the protocol wouldn’t stop malicious actors from using it since smart contracts operate independently and cannot be owned, controlled, or changed. The ruling also suggested that legislation be updated to better regulate the use of crypto-mixers.

Advocates argue that these services are mainly intended to protect user privacy. However, there have been many cases where criminals have used these services to launder money, which has drawn the attention of law enforcement agencies around the world.