# Alex Pertsev sentenced to 5 years of prison

Source: https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/05/14/tornado-cash-developer-alexey-pertsev-found-guilty-of-money-laundering
Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Alex-Pertsev-sentenced-to-5-years-of-prison?index=0x66436772a0a6f88d9bc630b436aa436f9563b666b264c9c6807ab0becf31be20c81fc613
Submitted by sileo.eth on 2024-05-14 UTC, 11 upvotes, 5 comments

## Summary

Dutch judge Alexey Pertsev, a Tornado Cash developer, was sentenced to 64 months in prison for money laundering by a court in s-Hertogenbosch on Tuesday, May 14, 2024. The court found that between July 9, 2019 and Aug. 10, 2022, Pertsev made "a habit of committing money laundering" and should have at least suspected the criminal origins of illicit transactions on the Tornado Cash platform. Pertsev can appeal, and it does not appear that his time in custody since his August 2022 arrest will count against the sentence. The verdict could affect future trials of other Tornado Cash developers, including Roman Storm, whose U.S. trial is set for September.

## Comments

**sileo.eth**: We are in dire need of new privacy projects. It was all the rage when the OFAC sanctions came but now that dust has settled, it's all memecoin talk again (apart from this specific day). We *do* have the technology to create a system by which users can prove that they belong to a specific anonymity subset, while simulteanously proving they don't belong in others. This could lead to a mixer where I can prove I'm not Lazarus, while remaining anon. Eventually, this means that if enough people act as such, they could create a social consensus as to who/what is acceptable. This undeniably leads to profound philosophical discussions but I think it's worth exploring. I would love to see some privacy properties in the core protocol, and I'm learning as fast as I can to hopefully make meaningful contributions one day.

**macbudkowski.eth**: I think adding some privacy properties to Ethereum is the only way because if you're a privacy-centric chain (like Monero or ZCash) or app (like Tornado), it's easy to say, "This thing is being used only by criminals."

It might be risky, though, as governments could then attack Ethereum as a whole. So, to make these bigger upgrades, I think we'd need more retail adoption so that the average Joe can say, "Well, I use Ethereum to send money to my mom; why do you think I'm a criminal?".


**sileo.eth**: Agreed, and your first argument can be applied to rollups as well. However, waiting for retail adoption would lead to a paradox: I believe that having the possibility to send money to a relative without exposing your balance or tx history is a necessary condition for retail adoption.

**baseddesigner.eth**: I guess the best way to build these privacy tools now is by being private in the first place.

Also curious if it was up to people of Netherlands to jail or not to jail him - I doubt he'd be in jail.

That makes it clear those governments work under their own agenda as something completely detached from people and democracy they are trying to portrait. 


**0x094A...865c**: MacBud said ""Well, I use Ethereum to send money to my mom; why do you think I'm a criminal?"."

But I disagree on Monero being only used by criminals.  In fact, transparent non-private chains create crime, because criminals know you're sending money to your mom and will try to impersonate your mom to get the funds.

Society can't function without privacy.  You want your co-workers to know how much your paid?  Your competitors to know your new business moves?

Also what even defines a criminal, because crypto law is not clear