The imprisonment of Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev is undoubtedly an “unfortunate” and “very sad” situation, yet it might prompt governments to reconsider the role of cryptocurrency mixers. This was stated by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin during the DappCon conference in Berlin.
According to him, creating software is an “absolutely legal and legitimate way to fight for privacy.”
On May 14, a Dutch court found Pertsev guilty of laundering $1.2 billion through the mixer and sentenced him to 64 months in prison. The developer has already appealed the decision. Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm is also awaiting trial.
“It is definitely very sad, and I hope that after Roman’s trial in the US, we will gain some positive clarity on this issue,” said Buterin.
He emphasized the importance of privacy and admired the ecosystem’s willingness to develop solutions to ensure it, such as Railgun and 0xbow. Buterin noted that they are focused “on ordinary people, not the Kremlin or anyone like that.”
“I really support people working on these things. I hope that things in the ecosystem will improve and that governments will see the value in this,” added the Ethereum co-founder.
Over the past six months, Buterin himself interacted several times with the Railgun protocol. Initially, he sent small amounts, but gradually increased the sum.
Previously, the developer suggested using zero-knowledge proofs to combat “preference falsification.”
In August 2022, OFAC blacklisted Tornado Cash for involvement in laundering over $7 billion in illicit funds. In addition to Pertsev and Storm, charges were brought against mixer co-founder Roman Semenov. He remains free but came under sanctions.