A judge in the Netherlands ruled that Tornado Cash developer Alexei Pertsev will have to serve another 90 days in prison while awaiting charges. Shocked by the decision, the crypto community rallied to demand the developer’s release.
In a tweet, crypto investor Ryan Adams argued That the developer did something good for the masses because he wrote the code for Tornado Cache. The community member then highlighted that “some bad guys” decided to use Pertsave’s code and now the developer will have to face the consequences.
In addition to Adams, crypto researcher Jill Gunter also noted That there is not enough information regarding the arrest of Paratsev. Günter described the status of the allegations as misleading and defined the situation as a “scary problem”.
In Amsterdam, protesters gathered to demand the developer’s release. Raising the slogan “Open source is not a crime”, the protesters urged the government to catch the perpetrators and not the developers.
— sudo rm -rf –no-protected-root / (@pcaversaccio) 20 August 2022
Cryptography teacher Matthew Green also criticized the Dutch police for their move to arrest Paratsev. He Told While he doesn’t know what the developer did to lead to the arrest, it seems the police don’t know either.
related: Tether says it will not freeze approved Tornado cache addresses unless instructed by law enforcement
On August 12, the developer was arrested on suspicion of being involved in money laundering through the Tornado Cash Mixer. Officials in the Netherlands said that Mixer was used to hide huge money flows from criminals and was used for crypto scams and hacks.
Earlier in August, the United States Treasury Department approved addresses associated with Tornado Cash and prohibited residents from using Mixer because of their involvement in decentralized finance (DeFi) hacks and exploits. USD Coin (USDC) and Ether (ETH) addresses were placed on the Office of Foreign Asset Control’s block list.
