Alexey Pertsev, the creator of the Tornado Cash cryptocurrency mixing service, is still in court, and his case has reached a crucial point. Pertsev is asking for more money to keep fighting for privacy rights and the freedom to publish code.
Since he was arrested two years ago, Pertsev has been in a high-stakes court battle with the government, which has put a lot of resources against him. A support account for Pertsev and fellow coder Roman Storm says that Pertsev’s savings have been used up.
This puts him in a tough spot because he is being charged with money laundering, breaking sanctions, and running an illegal money-transfer business.
Pertsev’s Urgent Funding Appeal
In a statement, the support account made it clear how urgent Pertsev’s position is and asked for between $750,000 and $1 million to cover his ongoing legal fees. They asked the crypto community to back Alexey and said, “It’s time to stand with him and fight for what’s right.”
The crypto community has shown a lot of support for Pertsev and Storm. Because they were being sued, a support group called JusticeDAO was created to raise money for the developers’ legal defenses.
Through a fundraiser called “Free Alexey & Roman” on the decentralized website Juicebox, the group had raised over 654 Ether, which was about $2.3 million at the time. This was done on June 19.
A further 70 Ether were raised through the JusticeDAO page, giving the developers even more cash support. For openness’s sake, Juicebox has made a worksheet that keeps track of the “Free Alexey & Roman” fund’s spending public. The records show that between December 2023 and May 2024, $1.39 million was spent on lawyers’ fees.
Even with all of these significant efforts, Pertsev’s legal fight is still going to cost a lot of money. The ‘s-Hertogenbosch Court of Appeal in the Netherlands found Pertsev guilty of money laundering on May 14. He is now serving a five-year and four-month prison term. The court made its ruling based on claims that Pertsev used Tornado Cash to wash $1.2 billion worth of illegal assets.
The lawyers for Pertsev are getting ready to fight the money laundering charges, but they haven’t been able to do much because Pertsev wasn’t allowed to use a computer to work on his defense. This denial has made it even harder for him to come up with a good legal plan.
In November 2023, a Dutch court turned down Pertsev’s request to be freed on bail while being watched because they thought he might try to escape. This led to his guilt. During his trial in March, Pertsev said that he shouldn’t be responsible for the acts of people who used the Tornado Cash protocol for bad things. The court, however, didn’t agree with this claim, saying that Pertsev and his co-founders could have taken more steps to stop criminals from abusing the protocol.
It is more important than ever for people to give money to help Pertsev with his legal fight. The result of his appeal is likely to have significant impacts on the future of privacy rights and the freedom to share code without worrying about getting in trouble with the law.
