The fight over whether writing privacy-focused code is a crime is heating up on both sides of the Atlantic, and the crypto community is opening its wallet to defend two key Tornado Cash engineers.
While Storm prepares for an American courtroom, Dutch coder Alexey Pertsev is challenging a 64-month sentence he received in May for facilitating $1.2 billion in illicit transfers:
The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control delisted Tornado Cash’s smart-contract addresses in March after a U.S. appeals court found that self-executing code isn’t “property” that can be sanctioned. That ruling eased token restrictions but left the criminal cases untouched, turning Storm and Pertsev into focal points for the broader debate over privacy tools, developer liability, and open-source innovation.
If prosecutors prevail, critics say it could set a precedent that chills open-source development in decentralized finance. Conversely, a win for Storm or Pertsev could reinforce the argument that publishing code—even code used by bad actors—remains protected speech.
With millions of dollars now riding on their defenses and trial dates approaching, the legal outcomes for Tornado Cash’s developers promise to shape how courts treat privacy tech for years to come.
WOO X, a popular cryptocurrency trading platform, has been hit by a serious security breach.
The first half of 2025 has already become the most damaging period in Web3 security history, according to Hacken’s newly released Half-Year Security Report.
The U.S. Department of Justice has officially ended its investigation into Kraken co-founder Jesse Powell, according to a Fortune report.
Indian crypto exchange CoinDCX has confirmed a $44 million security breach involving one of its internal liquidity accounts.