Tornado Cash developer remanded in custody another 3 months without charge Dorian Batycka · 2 hours ago · 1 min read A Dutch court has remanded Alexey Pertsev in custody until April.1 min read Updated: February 15, 2023 at 10:29 pm Cover art/illustration via CryptoSlate Ad Alexey Pertsev, the developer of Tornado Cash, an open-source crypto-mixing protocol, will continue to be detained until his next hearing on April 21, according to a ruling by a Dutch court.The court of East Brabant in Holland has also scheduled a pre-trial review for May 24, as reported by The Block.In August, Dutch authorities arrested Pertsev just days after the U.S.
Treasury sanctioned Tornado Cash, alleging that the crypto mixing service facilitated the laundering of funds for malicious cyber actors, including a hacking group the FBI accuses of having connections to North Korea.
In total, Tornado Cash is being accused of laundering $7 billion worth of funds, including $455 million stolen by the North Korea-linked Lazarus group, the FBI alleges.Tornado Cash is a service that allows users to pool their crypto funds with others.It is an open-source protocol that advocates privacy in mixing and pooling users’ funds within multiple wallets, obfuscating in/out-flows of funds, and offering anonymization services for cryptocurrencies.
According to the Dutch Ministry of Finance (FIOD), Pertsev stands accused of “concealing criminal financial flows and facilitating money laundering through the mixing of cryptocurrencies through the decentralized Ethereum mixing service Tornado Cash.” So far, however, Pertsev has not been formally charged with a crime.He is being detained for 110-day intervals under a provision in Dutch law that allows for people to be held for such periods without being formally charged.Pertsev has had three appeals rejected since his arrest, with the last one being denied in November 2022.Several prominent blockchain developers have stood up for Pertsev online, with a number of them sharing links to the FreeAlex.nl page and a change.org petition, which so far has over 5,000 signatures in support of Pertsev./r/Bitcoin Bitcoin Records Largest Mined Block To Date, 4 MB Block Containing NFT Causes Unease Among Small-Block Supporters Amid the controversy surrounding the Ordinals project and the debate over what types of data should be stored on the Bitcoin blockchain, the network mined its largest block, nearly 4 MB in size, containing just 63 transactions.One of the transactions was a 3.94 MB Ordinal inscription featuring an image of a wizard, and the Bitcoin-issued non-fungible token (NFT) has generated significant discussion.
Small Block Advocates Speak Out Against the 4 MB Bitcoin Block With NFT Inscription On Feb.1, 2023, the Luxor mining pool mined the largest block (#774,628) ever recorded on the Bitcoin network, approximately 3.96 MB.The coinbase parameter of the block contains a message indicating its discovery by Luxor.The mining pool also took to Twitter to inform the community about the discovery and the reason for the large size of the block.“Last night, Luxor harnessed its magic energy and freed an ancient wizard from his cosmic cage where he had been trapped for many epochs,” the mining pool tweeted.“Keen observers of the chain of time may have noticed a 4 MB anomaly, unlike anything seen before.Will there be others?” The tweet also included an image of the “Taproot Wizard,” an Ordinal inscription #652, attached to the block.
Taproot, a feature applied to the Bitcoin network on Nov.12, 2021, was activated at block height 709,632 and brought several new benefits to BTC users.A 3.96 MB block #774628 has been just added to Bitcoin by @LuxorTechTeam exploiting buggy Taproot! The previous record was just 2.77 MB.
Here’s the list of the largest blocks: https://t.co/LsavqjLFEq This will trigger many! Are we on the verge of a new blocksize war? 🤓 — Nikita Zhavoronkov (@nikzh) February 2, 2023 Essentially, Taproot allows multiple participants in a transaction to create a single combined digital signature, making transactions more efficient and private.Since the creation of Ordinals, it has been discovered that using a Segregated Witness (Segwit) “discount” in combination with Taproot allows for a full block to be 4 MB in size, bypassing the 1 MB limit encoded in the Bitcoin blockchain.It was previously known that Segwit slightly increased block sizes, with the largest block before Luxor’s 3.96 MB being 2.765 MB (#748,918) mined on Aug.11, 2022.
Concerns Raised Over Immutable Nature of Bitcoin and So-Called ‘Dangerous’ Content Meanwhile, Ordinals were already controversial among some bitcoin maximalists, and the 4 MB block mined with only 63 transactions and a Wizard JPEG caused further upset.For instance, bitcoin developer Luke Dashjr, who called Ordinals an “attack,” quickly created a node patch to filter or censor Ordinal “spam.” “NOT a protocol change or soft fork/hard fork, just a harmless (if it works right) spam filter,” Dashjr wrote.“Also a quick hack and NOT suitable for opening a PR to Core – please write a proper fix for that.” Many bitcoin advocates were dissatisfied with the record-breaking block size, and the topic was discussed on the Reddit forum r/bitcoin.The most upvoted comment in the thread read: “I would much rather see such a block full of real monetary transactions from thousands of people, instead of this idiocy.” Another individual agreed with this opinion and argued that the Taproot scheme that produced a 4 MB block was dangerous.“Yeah … This is rather dangerous.We’re one bad actor or one automated miner away from cementing vile and disgusting things to a permanent, globally distributed, uncensorable database.It will be interesting to see if there is a free market solution to this.” Someone has just uploaded DOOM to the BTC blockchain.
Go here to try it out:https://t.co/DLuBYj06CS — Hector Lopez (@hlopez_) February 2, 2023 In addition to the stir caused by the Wizard-block Ordinal, an unsavory image was inscribed into inscription #668.
Although the image was removed from the Ordinals website, it remains immutable and cannot be removed from the Bitcoin blockchain.Furthermore, a game, “DOOM,” was uploaded to the blockchain and can be found in inscription #466.Some bitcoin advocates expressed dissatisfaction with the mining pool Luxor, which mined the 4 MB block.One person responded to Luxor’s tweet, saying, “There’s nothing revolutionary in what you did.
You stuffed a nasty JPEG with zero artistic value into the blockchain.Okay…you could have crafted the same stupid image 10,000 times smaller.
Why did you make it 4 MB? Because it’s mischief; you are trolls.” Tags in this story artistic value, automated miner, bad actor, Bitcoin, bitcoin maximalists, Block Size, Blockchain, Censorship, controversy, Cryptocurrency, dangerous, Decentralized, Developer, Digital Art, Digital Collectibles, digital market, digital ownership, free market solution, Hardfork, idiocy, immutable, Innovation, Luke Dashjr, Luxor, mining pool, mischief, monetary transactions, nft, node patch, ordinals, Ownership, Privacy-preserving, protocol change, r/bitcoin, Reddit, Scarcity, Security, Segragated Witness, SegWit, softfork, Taproot, transactions, Transparency, uncensorable database, upvoted, upvoted comment, virtual assets, wizard What is your take on the 4 MB block controversy in the Bitcoin network? Do you believe it is a potential threat or a harmless addition to the blockchain? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.Jamie Redman Jamie Redman is the News Lead at Bitcoin.com News and a financial tech journalist living in Florida.Redman has been an active member of the cryptocurrency community since 2011.
He has a passion for Bitcoin, open-source code, and decentralized applications.Since September 2015, Redman has written more than 6,000 articles for Bitcoin.com News about the disruptive protocols emerging today.Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons, Editorial photo credit: Ordinal inscription #652 Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only.It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies.
Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice.
Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.Censorship Tornado Cash developer seeks $240K salary to resurrect protocol Tornado Cash developer seeks $240K salary to resurrect protocol Christian Nwobodo · 7 hours ago · 1 min read A Tornado Cash developer identified as “Gozzy” has proposed to receive an annual pay of $240,000 to cover the potential risk that may arise from going against the OFAC sanction.1 min read Updated: December 22, 2022 at 12:17 pm Cover art/illustration via CryptoSlate A Tornado Cash developer identified as “Gozzy” has initiated a proposal to receive $240,000 in remuneration to continue development activities on the sanctioned mixing protocol.Gozzy wrote: “Given the lack of assistance at hand, the complexity of the technology, and the potential legal litigations that may arise from my involvement with the organization, I am advocating for a competitive salary which stands at $240,000 per.” The U.S.
Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Tornado Cash in August for allegedly facilitating the laundering of over $7 billion worth of cryptocurrencies.The OFAC sanction led to the arrest of Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev, which forced Tornado DAO to halt operations to keep its members safe from further indictment.
The payment will be issued at about $60,000 per quarter via a Sablier stream, which can be controlled on-chain through the governance process.Based on the proposal, the developer’s responsibilities will range from maintaining Tornado’s website, moderating community activities, further developing the protocol, and providing educational resources for Tornado Cash users.The governance voting process on Gozzy’s proposal is scheduled to commence on Dec.24, for all surviving TORN token holders.Efforts to resurrect Tornado Cash A Johns Hopkins professor called Mattew Green re-uploaded the Tornado Cash’s source code days after it was removed from GitHub and said the codebase was crucial for teaching his students.Pro-crypto Congressman Tom Emmer also called out the U.S.Treasury for sanctioning a permissionless protocol.He urged the Treasury to respect the privacy of individuals in the discharge of its duties.
Coinbase reportedly sponsored a group of Tornado Cash users who filed charges against the U.S.
Treasury for allegedly violating their right to privacy.Bankruptcy FTX debtors attempt to seal corporate identities to obfuscate bankruptcy proceedings FTX debtors attempt to seal corporate identities to obfuscate bankruptcy proceedings Liam ‘Akiba’ Wright · 7 hours ago · 3 min read The U.S.Trustees have filed a claim asking the court to deny Debtors’ request to seal individual and legal entities information.3 min read Updated: December 13, 2022 at 1:24 am Cover art/illustration via CryptoSlate According to documents filed on Dec.12, the Debtors of FTX are attempting to obfuscate the bankruptcy hearing by continuing to insist all individual and corporate client identities are sealed unless specifically requested to be revealed.
Sealing of personal information While the personal information of individual investors can rightly be viewed as private information that should not be made available to the public, the identities of corporate clients of FTX may not be subject to the same moral objections.On Dec.
9, several popular media organizations filed a motion to have the identities of all individuals made public.Bloomberg L.P., Dow Jones & Company, Inc., The New York Times Company, and The Financial Times Ltd filed a joint claim as the “Media Intervenors” to “Move to intervene for the limited purpose of objecting to Debtors’ Motion for Entry of a Final Order Authorizing the Debtors to Redact or Withhold Certain Confidential Information of Customers and Personal Information of Individuals.” If passed, such a claim would reveal individual investors’ identities in FTX, thus similarly doxing ordinary retail users to the Celsius bankruptcy.Given the turmoil already suffered by investors, leaking private information could only lead to further heartache and pain.However, the identity of corporate clients of FTX arguably should be brought into the public domain.
The current proposition would shield companies with exposure to FTX to seal all client information unless it is specifically requested.Not only does this method allow companies to avoid public scrutiny, but it will also slow down the bankruptcy court’s due diligence and discovery process.
In a claim filed on Dec.12, the U.S.
Trustees requested “authority for a wholesale redaction from “any paper filed or to be filed with the Court or made publicly available in these chapter 11 Cases,” of the following information: (a) the names, addresses and email addresses of all customers (who are also creditors of the Debtors), whether such customers are individuals, or legal entities.” U.S.Trustee’s objections to the claim However, the claim continued to assert that the “U.S.Trustee does not object to the filing under seal of the addresses or email addresses of customers or other creditors who are individuals.” The names of individuals not protected by laws such as GDPR in the U.K.and E.U.are, nevertheless, still required to be unsealed under the claim.
The motivation for the filing was asserted to be “fundamental to the operation of the bankruptcy system,” stating that the debtors held “nothing more than vague statements supporting the request.” The claim cited the Celsius case as a precedent for not redacting customer names while protecting user addresses and email addresses.Further, it argued that the Debtors’ proposition to provide unredacted copies to the Court only “upon request” is “contrary to the procedures for sealing outlined in the Local Rules of this Court.” Lastly, the claim uses FTX’s privacy policy against it.The policy allows the sharing of customer information concerning bankruptcy procedures.The claim further asserted “It is well settled that, as a matter of promoting the integrity of the judicial system, bankruptcy proceedings must be open and transparent.4 Accordingly, the Debtors’ request should be denied.” The omnibus hearing under which the relevant claims will be heard will occur on Dec.16 in the District of Delaware.
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