Ksenia Malik, the wife of Tornado Cash creator Alexey Pertsev, has lashed out at Nederlander government bodies for the treatment of her husband just like a “dangerous criminal” following his arrest a week ago.
The Nederlander Fiscal Information and Analysis Service (FIOD) arrested Pertsev on August. 12 over an alleged utilisation of the Ethereum-based privacy tool to launder money and hide criminal financial flows.
Talking with Cointelegraph, Malik confirmed that Pertsev remains at the disposal of Nederlander government bodies and it has not had the opportunity to contact him since he was put in jail.
“He’s stored imprisonment as though he were a harmful criminal,” Malik stated, as she expressed her concern that Pertsev was arrested unexpectedly over what she sees like a harmless activity:
“It is extremely unpredicted for me personally that an individual can be charged with writing free code.”
Malik stated that they can “only guess how he’s doing and just how difficult it’s for him at this time,” because the Nederlander government bodies have completely barred her [or anybody] from the connection with him, not really “one short call.”
Despite Malik feeling helpless in connection with this, she isn’t without support. Decentralized finance (DeFi) aggregator 1inch has organized a rally in Amsterdam on Aug. 20, to exhibit support for Pertsev and also to are a symbol of developers’ legal rights to produce open-source software.
1inch continues to be particularly vocal concerning the matter, getting stated the arrest of Pertsev threatens to “create a harmful precedent,” as it may “kill the whole open-source software segment” if developers are held accountable for just about any software they’ve created that’s misused by others.
1/ Could it be a real crime to become a wide open-source #blockchain developer nowadays ⁉️
Defend the authority to build open-source software!
Help Alex Pertsev get free from jail!
Sign the petition: https://t.co/r5sdHaYKCN#FreeAlex #OpenSourceNotACrime #DeFi
Why do important⤵️ pic.twitter.com/CqqD4Ds8AQ
— 1inch Network (@1inch) August 18, 2022
Considering 1inch’s efforts and also the broader crypto community, Malik stated that she’s “very grateful to everybody who helps and supports my hubby,” because it proves that “people mind.”
Malik also hopes the rally not just draws focus on Pertsev’s injustice but additionally positively influences public opinion around the nature of open-source code:
“We wish to achieve publicity so when lots of people as you possibly can know of the arrest and also the causes of its wrongness. This can be a major problem, as every free developer and lots of others can have this accusation.”
However, Pertsev’s arrest isn’t entirely disapproved of. venture capitalist Kevin O’Leary mentioned inside a recent interview that crypto privacy tools like Tornado Cash are part of a “crypto cowboy” culture that “mess using the primal forces of regulation,” while starting with describe Pertsev’s arrest like a necessary one.
“If we must sacrifice him, that’s okay, because you want to possess some stability for the reason that institutional capital,” he stated.
Related: Tornado Cash sanctions will undermine the united states and strengthen crypto
Before the arrest, the U . s . States Office of Foreign Asset Control barred U.S. residents from getting together with Tornado Cash on August. 8 among growing concerns it had become getting used to launder money. The U.S. Treasury believes Tornado Cash has facilitated greater than $7 billion price of money washing activity since Pertsev produced Tornado Money in 2019.
