Tornado Cash founder sent to prison, DeFi’s EU struggles: Finance Redefined

The Tornado Cash developer has been detained in the Netherlands since August 2022 after the United States government blacklisted Tornado Cash.

Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance (DeFi) insights — a newsletter crafted to bring you the most significant developments from the past week.

The past week in DeFi saw the guilty verdict of the Tornado Cash developer for money laundering. Alexey Pertsev was sentenced to over five years in prison.

In other news, Binance found an antidote to the infamous address poisoning scam, Polymarket raised $70 million, attracting investment from Vitalik Buterin and Peter Thiel, and DeFi faces a challenging future in the European Union.

Tornado Cash developer guilty of money laundering

Alexey Pertsev, the developer of the cryptocurrency mixing protocol Tornado Cash, has been found guilty of money laundering. This has potentially severe implications for open-source code developers.

On May 14, Dutch judges at the s-Hertogenbosch Court of Appeal found Pertsev guilty of money laundering. The developer was sentenced to five years and four months in prison for allegedly laundering $1.2 billion worth of illicit assets on the platform.

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DeFi may struggle to stay decentralized after the new EU law

New regulations in the European Union may soon force DeFi protocols to make tough decisions. At the heart of the issue is the tendency of many DeFi protocols to have centralized front-ends and intermediaries.

The EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), which will come into full force by the end of 2024, will require DeFi protocols to adhere to the same licensing and Know Your Customer requirements as traditional financial services firms — a burden many DeFi protocols may be unable or unwilling to bear.

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Binance develops “antidote” to address poisoning scams after $68 million exploit

Binance’s security experts developed an “antidote” against the growing instances of address poisoning scams that trick investors into willingly sending funds to a fraudulent address.

The security team of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange developed an algorithm that detected millions of poisoned crypto addresses, according to a report shared with Cointelegraph.

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Polymarket raises $70 million from Vitalik Buterin, Founders Fund

Peter Thiel’s venture capital firm, Founders Fund, and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin have spearheaded a $70 million fundraising effort for Polymarket, a platform enabling betting on political events.

According to Bloomberg, Polymarket successfully raised $70 million across two funding rounds as betting on the 2024 United States presidential elections gains momentum. The latest Series B Polymarket funding round was spearheaded by Founders Fund, raising $45 million.

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DeFi market overview

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that DeFi’s top 100 tokens by market capitalization had a mixed week, with most trading in the green on the weekly charts. The total value locked in DeFi protocols remained above $90 billion.

Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us next Friday for more stories, insights and education regarding this dynamically advancing space.