Federico Carrone, one of Ethereum’s core developers, has confirmed he is back in Europe after spending 24 hours in custody in Turkey.
He said the detention was linked to accusations from Turkey’s Minister of Internal Affairs that he had “helped others misuse Ethereum
$4,531.38
” through a privacy protocol.
Carrone noted that the case is connected to a research paper he co-authored in January 2022, which looked at user privacy on Ethereum and Tornado Cash. He said, “We never helped anyone engage in illegal activity, it was purely research on mixers and their properties”.
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He described the first moments in custody as difficult, having been told he would lose his phone and be unable to contact anyone. Support quickly arrived from friends in the UAE, UK, US, Europe, Argentina, and even from members of the Catholic Church.
Although he has been released, the case is still active. A Turkish lawyer is working on his defense, and Carrone said he is committed to resolving the matter. He explained:
We still don’t have the full picture of what happened or why it happened, but we will bring in the best team we can and resolve this.
The day after his release, Carrone announced he had donated $500,000 worth of Ethereum to support Storm’s legal defense. He said the contribution was meant to show that developers working on new technologies should know the community will support them when legal challenges arise.
The Ethereum Foundation recently pledged to match up to $500,000 in new donations to support the legal defense of Storm. What did co-executive director Wei Wang say? Read the full story.
