Can Code Commit a Crime? Alexey Pertsev’s Trial Featured at Dutch Blockchain Week
July 8, 2026
At Dutch Blockchain Week 2026, a panel of lawyers, builders, and human rights defenders gathered to confront a question that should concern anyone who writes software: can code commit a crime? At the center of the conversation was the Tornado Cash case and the appeal of developer Alexey Pertsev. Pertsev’s appeal lawyer, Judith de Boer, was central in this conversation.
A legal decision that turned software into a criminal
De Boer cut straight to what the first-instance court actually decided: “The main question in this case is, of course, can a software developer be held criminally liable for writing code?” The court’s logic, she explained, was that when bad actors deposit illegal funds into Tornado Cash’s smart contracts, “the code makes it harder to trace these funds on a public blockchain, and the Court has stated that this is money laundering.”
That reasoning, she argued, does something unprecedented: “The Court [came] to the conclusion that the code itself, the tool, is the one that commits the crime.” In other words, the court 1) decided the code itself was the criminal actor, and then 2) determined that the developer could be held criminally liable for writing the code.
De Boer asked the room to sit with the implications. “If somebody sends a phishing email to tens of thousands of people, is the email then the criminal actor, and who are we going to be holding responsible for that? The email hoster or the one that developed it?” The same absurdity applies offline: “If a car is used as a getaway car or it runs into a crowd… are we going to storm in the office of the car manufacturer? That is not happening. This is only happening here.”
De Boer raised a point she called essential to the appeal: the smart contracts cannot be changed. “They threw Alex Pertsev in prison. And the smart contracts are still being used. So… if you cannot change the code, should somebody then, in eternity, be responsible for what other people are doing with code?”
Her conclusion: “We shouldn’t turn tools into criminal actors because they don’t know what they’re doing. They’re completely neutral. It’s the user that decides if he is going to use it for good or for bad.”
Why this reaches far beyond one developer
The panel underscored that the stakes have implications on the future of freedom and democracy.
Bota Jardemalie, a Harvard-trained human rights lawyer granted political asylum after Kazakhstan pursued her, described privacy tools as lifelines for many around the world.
“This technology is . . . a technology of protection; technology that allows us, civil society members, to function in the times when financial regulations become stricter and stricter,” she said. She warned that authoritarian regimes increasingly weaponize Western financial standards to build a “digital prison” around civil society.
Bota also discussed the need to address perception issues around privacy-preserving technologies: “there is a stigma already attached in the eyes of the regulator,” including an assumption that these technologies “are used by either those who want taxes or money launderers or terrorists.” She said that when she brings real cases to the European Parliament, “the reaction immediately becomes negative. They say that how this technology is created for . . . criminals [and i]t’s very disappointing that you use it as well.”
Legal clarity is the foundation of innovation itself, the panelists argued. “Legal clarity is the basis to have trust in the democracy. And trust is a crucial basis to feel free to innovate. Without, you don’t dare to innovate,” de Boer explained. Developers, she said, should “know upfront what they can do and not do, otherwise it will stifle innovation.”
Aztec Labs’ General Counsel André Omietanski warned of a chilling effect on builders: “Legal clarity always follows technology and innovation,” he explained. “…innovation and technology comes first. Enforcement comes second, and clarity comes last.” The danger with this timeline, he argued, is that ambiguity drives talent away: a developer “launching the next trillion-dollar company… will not set up in the Netherlands. It will not set up in the EU. And it will go somewhere else.”
What’s next for Pertsev?
Alexey Pertsev, co-founder of Tornado Cash, was convicted of money laundering in the Netherlands in May 2024, and he is appealing the decision via the Court of Appeal ‘s-Hertogenbosch. A formal date for the appeal hearing has not yet been announced. During the Dutch Blockchain Week panel, moderator Jan Scheele said “the appeal will be hopefully next year” (i.e., 2027).
Pertsev was released from pretrial detention in early 2025 to work on his appeal.
“We will do everything to overturn this precedent,” said de Boer. The decision will have major implications on key questions: can neutral code be a criminal actor? And should the developer then be responsible for how third parties use their code?
