Tornado Cash developer Alex Pertsev tweets for first time following prison release
Alex Pertsev, the Tornado Cash developer arrested in August 2022, is back on Twitter.
Pertsev was released from prison on April 26, as previously reported by The Block, and is subject to ankle bracelet monitoring. The Dutch courts had shot down previous efforts to secure Pertsev’s release.
Sorry I was afk for a while, what did I miss? 👀
— Alexey Pertsev (@alex_pertsev) April 28, 2023
Pertsev was arrested in the days after the U.S. government sanctioned Tornado Cash, an Ethereum-based transaction mixer frequently used to launder stolen coins.
Law enforcement authorities worldwide have long targeted transaction mixers and most recently seized $46 million in bitcoin as part of an operation against a service called ChipMixer.
Pertsev’s arrest and subsequent incarceration drew some criticism on the grounds that Pertsev shouldn’t be penalized for developing open-source code. The incident also raised questions about the future of law enforcement actions against distributed protocols like Tornado Cash.
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Author: Michael McSweeney
