Harry Halpin, CEO of privacy-focused project Nym, shared his thoughts on the recent ruling against Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev.
In an interview with Cointelegraph’s Jonathan DeYoung at Consensus 2024, Halpin characterized the statement as “completely unfair and irrational” and offered the following analogy:
“The punishment is also not proportional. You’ve been in prison for years because North Koreans used your software. What I mean is, North Koreans use Linux. Are you going to put Richard Stallman in jail? You know, they’re probably going to use , a stolen copy of Windows could put Bill Gates in jail?
CEO Nym cited the history of the World War II era as a representative example of why personal information must be protected in the 21st century. Halpin explained that during World War II, the Netherlands saw most of its Jewish population wiped out by the Nazis due to a sophisticated identity tracking system that other European countries, such as France, did not have.
Although these systems are nothing compared to modern surveillance architectures, in the 1930s they were considered state-of-the-art and powerful. Halpin was surprised that the Dutch court where Alexey Pertsev was sentenced did not understand these lessons.
Pertsev was sentenced to 64 months in prison in May 2024 for his role in developing the Tornado Cash software, and Halpin urged Pertsev to appeal.
Related: Vitalik Buterin wallet donates 30 ETH to Tornado Cash legal fund.
Tornado Cache Incident
In 2022, the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed sanctions on Tornado Cash for facilitating money laundering and providing a means for other sanctioned companies to evade U.S. sanctions. Federal law enforcement officials alleged that the service helped launder more than $1 billion in illicit funds.
The following year, a U.S. District Court ruled that the sanctions were justified, and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York announced indictments against Tornado Cash developers Roman Storm and Roman Semenov.
Both developers face money laundering and sanctions violations charges in the United States, and those cases are pending.
At the time the charges were announced, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said: “No matter how elaborate your plan is or how many attempts you make to anonymize yourself, the Department of Justice will find you.”