The conviction of Alexey Pertsev, the inventor of Tornado Cash, has significant implications for blockchain technology since it supports a wide view of criminal culpability.
The conviction of Tornado Cash’s creator, Alexey Pertsev, stems from a disturbing view of criminal responsibility that may affect cryptocurrency in broader ways.
Pertsev will now spend a five-year and four-month term for money laundering via Tornado Cash, according to the Dutch court’s guilty finding. Despite Pertsev’s lack of participation in the actual laundering, this is the case.
Cointelegraph stated with Andrew Balthazor, a lawyer at Holland & Knight, to get his take on what the decision means.
“The conviction of Mr. Pertsev lends credence to the idea that governments should hold software makers accountable for the potential outcomes of their publicly accessible programme,” said Balthazor.
It is not a defense under this theory of culpability to deny knowing about a particular criminal conduct or to say that the programmed had technological limitations that made it difficult to prevent its abuse by bad actors. the following: The burden of reducing or preventing the anticipated illicit use of their product is on the developer.
Balthazor responded to the question of whether the United States was one of the countries holding such stance by saying, “Yes, it seems to be the viewpoint of the U.S. as indicated by the Tornado Cash indictments filed domestically by the DoJ – [Department of Justice].”
Most people’s conventional understandings of liability are drastically at odds with this one. Merkle Science’s head of public policy and regulatory relations, Natalia Latka, discussed the theory’s development with Cointelegraph.
“Typically, people thought of software engineers as impartial architects of platforms and tools, accountable for the technical aspects of those things but not for their users’ experiences with those things,” Latka said.
“This view originated from the premise that technology is objective and that its use is contingent upon the goals of the people using it. The emergence of decentralized networks that pose a threat to established regulatory frameworks has contributed to this change in thinking.” According to Latka, programmers “must now consider the legal ramifications and possible exploitation of their products.”
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