Alexey Pertsev, a developer of the now-sanctioned crypto mixer Tornado Cash, has been ordered to stay in jail until Feb. 20 at least, Dutch public prosecutor Martine Boerlage ruled at Tuesday’s hearing.
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Fast facts
- For the first time since his arrest, Pertsev was officially accused of money laundering charges, due to contributing to the Tornado Cash protocol’s code.
- The court in the Netherlands found that the Russian developer represented a flight risk and denied releasing him on bail.
- Boerlage refused to entertain arguments about the protocol’s decentralization, alleging that Persev and others were in control of the crypto mixer.
- The prosecutor also accused Pertsev, along with two other developers Semenov and Storm, of holding so many governance tokens that they could “always outvote everyone else,” in governance proposals.
- Pertsev was arrested in August, a few days after the U.S. Treasury sanctioned the Tornado Cash protocol for allegedly being used by North Korean hackers to launder over a billion dollars worth of digital assets.
- Pertsev’s case has sparked concern among Web 3.0 and open-source software developers, as other developers could also be held responsible for how their code is used.
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