Tornado Cash Developer Convicted
The Breakdown
Blockworks
4.8 • 806 Ratings
🗓️ 16 May 2024
⏱️ 13 minutes
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. |
| 0:08.3 | It's a daily podcast on Macro, Bitcoin, and the Big Picture Power Shifts remaking our world. |
| 0:18.4 | What's going on, guys? It is Wednesday, May 15th, and today we are talking about a resolution |
| 0:23.1 | in the Tornado Cash trial. Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying the breakdown, |
| 0:27.4 | please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper |
| 0:30.8 | into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link in the show notes |
| 0:34.6 | or go to bit.ly slash breakdown pod. Well, friends, tornado cash developer Alexei Pertsev has been convicted on money laundering |
| 0:42.1 | charges in the Netherlands. |
| 0:43.9 | Alexi has been sentenced to serve five years and four months in prison, which was the maximum |
| 0:47.9 | sentence available. |
| 0:49.1 | The trial was held in front of a panel of three judges without a jury present. |
| 0:52.5 | The verdict stated that, quote, |
| 0:57.9 | the court considers it legally and convincingly proven that the suspect, together with others, |
| 1:02.1 | was guilty of laundering the ether from a crime included in the indictment and that he has made a habit of this laundering. Elsewhere, the verdict added, |
| 1:05.3 | Tornado Cash does not pose any barrier for people with criminal assets who want to launder them. |
| 1:09.5 | That is why the court regards the defendant guilty of the money laundering activities as charged. This was the central issue of the |
| 1:15.6 | case. The court determined that Perzav was guilty of money laundering simply by publishing a tool |
| 1:19.8 | which later enabled it. The judges didn't find that there was any need for prior criminal intent, |
| 1:24.0 | just that it was foreseeable that money laundering would take place using tornado cashado Cash. The verdict found that Tornado Cash has no legitimate non-criminal use. It leaned |
| 1:32.1 | heavily on the idea that Perzev was made aware of money laundering on the platform and did not |
| 1:36.2 | take meaningful steps to prevent it. Tornado Cash operates using immutable smart contracts, |
| 1:40.5 | meaning that any attempt to limit use would have been futile. The judges recognized this fact, |
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