Before seeing how the crypto community reacts to Tornado Cash developer Alex Pertsev’s arrest, let’s see why it happened. Alex is a blockchain developer, and he wrote an open-source code that was then turned into the Tornado Cash project. Tornado cash is a mixer that helps hide the origin and destination of funds giving privacy to its users. However, the tool was misused by many financial criminals, which led to Tornado cash being sanctioned in the US.
Till this point, everything is fine, but the main problem happened when Alex was arrested on the premises that he wrote an open-source code online which was missed by 3rd parties.
Crypto community reacts to Tornado Cash developer Alex Pertsev’s arrest
A new petition has been started to set Alex free as writing an open-source code is not a crime. The developer’s intention was to give users privacy, but as an open-source developer, he had no control over how his code was used. So, it is wrong to blame him for other people’s misdoings. Additionally, if Alex is proven guilty, then no one would dare to write open source codes, as you never know how they might get misused somewhere.
A very good example of this was written in this community post with the petition link where they said that blaming Alex is like prosecuting a knife maker for a murder that was done by someone else using a kitchen knife. No one control Tornado Cash, and it can be used by anyone.
The crypto community is really unhappy about this because we all know that Alex is not in the wrong here. If writing a code to preserve user privacy can land you in jail, then we are not living in a free world. Here are some of the tweets of the community.
They arrested the developer of tornado cash. ?
I repeat: a man was arrested for writing code that served as a public good for people to maintain their privacy online.
They put a man in jail because bad people used his open source code.
This cannot stand in any free society.
— RYAN SΞAN ADAMS – rsa.eth (@RyanSAdams) August 12, 2022
My friend and great engineer Alex @alex_pertsev was recently arrested by @FIOD and his only guilt was writing open source code on GitHub. Unfortunately, they have no idea about smart contracts, web3, dapps, protocols but they can arrest and judge #FreeAlex https://t.co/oouEdpGWNZ pic.twitter.com/0ohOWHabgY
— Anton Bukov (e/acc)?? (@k06a) August 14, 2022
Till now, no charges have been pressed on Alex, but he is held in prison under suspicion. The authorities can hold him there for 110 days. Just imagine being in jail for so long for writing an open-source code. Let’s help him out by signing this petition.
What are your thoughts as the crypto community reacts to Tornado Cash developer Alex Pertsev’s arrest? And do you think this shows how unfair the world is where we stay is? Let us know in the comments below. And, if you found our content informative, share it with your friends.
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