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The $2.3 Billion Tornado Cash Case Is a Pivotal Moment for Crypto Privacy
Tuesday’s verdict in the trial of Alexey Pertsev, a creator of crypto-privacy service Tornado Cash, is the first in a string of cases that could make it much harder to skirt financial surveillance.
Since US and Dutch prosecutors indicted Tornado Cash's cofounders and the US Treasury sanctioned the service in 2022, the case has become a cause célèbre in some cryptocurrency circles, many of whose adherents argue that a guilty verdict could not only damage financial privacy but also set a dangerous precedent that developers of open source software can be held liable for the actions of those who use their tools. Yet the Dutch prosecutors and Netherlands' financial law enforcement agency, known as FIOD, which led the investigation of Pertsev, argue that the case isn't actually about a fundamental conflict between privacy and security, or liability for open source code, or any other larger principle. When North Korean hackers stole more than $600 million from the blockchain-based game Axie Infinity in March of 2022, Tornado Cash cofounder Semenov wrote anxiously to Pertsev and Storm that “the fucking disaster is about to begin,” perhaps fearing that their service would be used by the perpetrators of that massive heist, as it already had been in well over a dozen others.
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