#FreeAlexey (by Trevor & Violet Jones)

Media: Digital art, Oil on canvas

Year: 2022

Collection: #FreeAlexey by Trevor & Violet Jones

Size (H x W): 80cm x 80cm (2 ft 7 ins x 2 ft 7 ins)

Size (W x H): 5000 x 5000 pixels

#FreeAlexey is the first ever artistic collaboration between Trevor and Violet Jones, in response to CoinDesk’s brief to create a painting and NFT representing Alexey Pertsev, a developer of the Tornado Cash app.

Alexey and Tornado made headlines when the open-source, fully decentralized ‘coin mixer’ app was sanctioned by the United States government for allegations of laundering the proceeds of cybercrimes, including over $455 million stolen by a North Korean state-sponsored hacking group. Pertsev was arrested in Amsterdam and his assets seized. The arrest sparked multiple protests worldwide, compelling the Web3 community to share their opinions about the future of open-source technology. Many argue that Pertsev’s arrest is detrimental to the future of open-source software development and that a developer should not be arrested for how someone else chooses to use their open-source code.