In the conclusion of that same statement to the court, they point out that under Dutch law, the maximum prison sentence for money laundering on the scale allegedly committed by Pertsev is eight years, and they ask that Pertsev be sentenced to five years and four months if guilty.
The tornado continues
Cryptocurrency advocates focused on privacy and civil liberties will closely watch the outcome of the Pertsev case, which many see as an indicator of how Western law enforcement and regulators will draw the line between financial privacy and money laundering, including in some immediate cases to follow.
Storm's U.S. trial of Tornado Cash in a New York court later this year, as well as the U.S. indictment last month of the founders of Samourai Wallet, which prosecutors say offered similar privacy properties to Tornado Cash, are more likely to directly set privacy precedents. American law. But Pertsev's case may suggest where these cases will go, says Alex Gladstein, director of strategy at the Human Rights Foundation and an advocate for using Bitcoin as a human rights tool.
“What happens in the Netherlands will influence the New York case, and the Tornado Cash cases will really influence the outcome of the Samurai case,” Gladstein said. “These cases are going to be historic in that they set a precedent. »
Gladstein, like many cryptocurrency privacy advocates, argues that anyone assessing the value of tools like Tornado Cash should look beyond its use by hackers and look to countries like Cuba, Venezuela and the India, where activists and dissidents must hide their financial transactions from repressive governments. “For human rights activists, it is essential that they have money that the government cannot monitor,” says Gladstein.
Regardless of the verdict in Pertsev's case or that of his co-founder Roman Storm in the fall, the Tornado Cash founder's main argument – that the underlying infrastructure of Tornado Cash has always been beyond their control – proved correct: Tornado Cash endures.
When the tool's centralized web interface was taken offline last year following US sanctions and the arrest of the two co-founders (Roman Semenov, for now, remains free), Tornado Cash transactions fell by almost 90%, according to Chainalysis. But Tornado Cash remained online, still operating as a decentralized smart contract. In recent months, Chainalysis has seen its usage rise intermittently again. More than $283 million was pumped into the service in March alone.
In other words, whether it represents a public service for financial privacy and freedom or an out-of-control money laundering machine, its creators' claim has proven true: Tornado Cash remains beyond their control – or of anyone's.