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Have you heard that Alexey Pertsev, the founder of the mixer Tornado Cash, was recently arrested by the Dutch police? Yes, that's right, he got into trouble for allegedly being involved in money laundering activities. It's said that the prosecution is seeking a sentence of 64 months in prison for him, which is no joke.
This is a "regulatory shockwave for open-source protocols", and the entire community is in an uproar. As we all know, Tornado Cash was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control in August 2022. Coupled with the North Korean hacker incident, the whole situation has become quite murky. Don't just think of it as a technical matter; it involves much more than just coding. In 2023, two other founders, Roman Storm and Roman Semenov, were also criminally charged by the U.S. Department of Justice, with quite a laundry list of charges including conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmission business, and conspiracy to violate sanctions regulations, among others.
Now, Alexey Pertsev's trial has already begun, and the prosecutor is seeking a sentence of 64 months in prison for him. According to CoinDesk, the indictment lists a slew of transactions to prove his money laundering activities. Especially the transaction involving over $590 million, related to the Axie Infinity's Ronin Network hacker incident. It's said that this hacker incident is one of the largest Defi heists in history, just thinking about it is jaw-dropping. The entire lawsuit has attracted widespread attention, after all, it involves the public interests of developer communities, privacy advocates, and other groups. Roman Storm appealed to the community to raise funds for legal defense and raised over $1.51 million. This shows how much attention everyone is paying to this case.
So, this is not a joke. Regulation, technology, law - these are all matters that need to be taken seriously. Let's hope for a fair outcome, as it not only affects individuals but also the future of the entire open-source community. |
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