The $2.3 Billion Tornado Cash Case Is a Pivotal Moment for Crypto Privacy

A Dutch court found Tornado Cash cofounder Alexey Pertsev guilty of laundering $1.2 billion in crypto, well below the $2.3 billion prosecutors had alleged, and sentenced him to 64 months in prison. Dutch prosecutors argued that he made deliberate choices, including keeping a centralized web interface that 93.5 percent of users went through without safeguards, while stolen funds from 36 heists flowed through the service. His lead attorney, Keith Cheng, argued that users could bypass the website to reach the smart contracts directly, so blocking users there would have been pointless.