Alexey Pertsev

Alexey Pertsev (sometimes transliterated as Aleksei Pertsev) is a Russian software developer who co-created Tornado Cash — an Ethereum-based zero-knowledge proof transaction mixer — and was arrested by Dutch police in August 2022, held in pre-trial detention for eight months, and convicted by the East Brabant District Court on May 14, 2024 and sentenced to 5 years and 4 months in prison for money laundering through the Tornado Cash mixer.

Background

Alexey Pertsev is a Russian national with a background in software development. He developed Tornado Cash alongside Roman Storm (U.S.) and Roman Semenov (Russian, remains at large) as an open-source smart contract project. Tornado Cash is a set of Ethereum smart contracts that use zero-knowledge proofs (zk-SNARKs) to allow deposits and withdrawals that are cryptographically unlinkable — enabling privacy for legitimate Ethereum users but also usable for money laundering.

Tornado Cash

Tornado Cash was launched in 2019 and became the most widely used Ethereum privacy tool. It operated through:

Users depositing ETH or ERC-20 tokens into the Tornado Cash smart contract pool.
The user receives a cryptographic “note” (ZK proof).
The user (or anyone with the note) can withdraw tokens to a different address that has no on-chain connection to the deposit address.
Result: transaction history is broken; the link between sender and recipient is severed.

OFAC (U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control) sanctioned Tornado Cash on August 8, 2022, designating it as a threat to U.S. national security — the first time a piece of open-source smart contract code had been directly sanctioned. OFAC alleged that North Korea’s Lazarus Group used Tornado Cash to launder over $455 million in hacked cryptocurrency, and that over $7 billion in illicit funds had been laundered through it.

Arrest and Conviction

Pertsev was arrested in Amsterdam two days after the OFAC sanctions on August 10, 2022. He was held in pre-trial detention in Dutch custody for eight months (released in April 2023 under monitoring conditions) before standing trial.

May 14, 2024 conviction:

Dutch prosecutors argued that Pertsev was responsible for money laundering because he had sufficient control over and knowledge of Tornado Cash’s use for illicit purposes, and continued to develop and maintain the protocol with this knowledge. The “code is speech” and “immutable smart contract” defenses were rejected; the court found that Pertsev derived income through the TORN governance token and was a functional orchestrator of the system.

The 5 year and 4 month sentence was the maximum sought by prosecutors. Pertsev appealed.

Industry Significance

The Pertsev conviction is highly controversial in the crypto developer community because:

It establishes that writing open-source code that others use for illegal purposes can create criminal liability for the developer.
The smart contracts were (largely) immutable; Pertsev could not technically prevent their use.
Privacy advocates argue the ruling criminalizes privacy-preserving code itself.
Others argue knowingly profiting from a platform extensively used for money laundering while continuing to develop it is distinguishable from writing neutral tools.

History

Alexey Pertsev co-developed Tornado Cash in 2019 alongside Roman Storm and Roman Semenov as an open-source privacy tool for Ethereum. The protocol grew to become the most widely used on-chain transaction mixer. On August 8, 2022, the U.S. Treasury’s OFAC sanctioned Tornado Cash — marking the first time open-source smart contract code was directly designated as a sanctions target. Two days later, Pertsev was arrested in Amsterdam. After eight months in pre-trial detention he was released under monitoring conditions in April 2023. He stood trial in the Netherlands and was convicted on May 14, 2024 by the East Brabant District Court, receiving a 5 year and 4 month prison sentence — the maximum sought by prosecutors. His conviction is widely regarded as the most significant criminal case against a smart contract developer for liability arising from code use.

Key Dates

2019 — Tornado Cash launched as open-source Ethereum privacy protocol.
August 8, 2022 — OFAC sanctions Tornado Cash; first sanctioning of open-source smart contract code.
August 10, 2022 — Pertsev arrested in Amsterdam.
April 2023 — Released from pre-trial detention on monitoring conditions.
May 14, 2024 — Convicted by Dutch court; sentenced to 5 years 4 months.
2024 — Pertsev appeals conviction.

Common Misconceptions

“Pertsev was sanctioned by OFAC.” — It was Tornado Cash (the protocol/contracts) that was sanctioned by OFAC, not Pertsev personally. Pertsev was charged and convicted under Dutch law.
“The Tornado Cash smart contracts are shut down.” — The immutable Tornado Cash smart contracts continue to operate on Ethereum. No code can be deleted from a decentralized blockchain. What changed is that many front-end interfaces were shut down and many users/platforms now block addresses associated with it.

Last updated: 2026-04

Social Media Sentiment

r/ethereum / r/CryptoCurrency: Pertsev’s conviction was broadly condemned as criminalizing open-source development. “Code is speech” and “Free Pertsev” became rallying points; the verdict is seen as a chilling precedent for privacy tool developers.
X/Twitter: Hashtags trended in the Ethereum community after sentencing. Developers and cypherpunks were overwhelmingly critical; regulatory and compliance voices were more divided, arguing that knowingly profiting from a money-laundering platform is distinct from neutral tool development.
Discord (Ethereum / DeFi communities): Strong sympathy for Pertsev; his case is frequently cited in debates about developer liability and the legal risks of building privacy infrastructure.