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| Tornado Cash 
| #TORN
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| TORN Price: | $3.13 | | Volume: | $2.4 M | | All Time High: | $468 | | Market Cap: | $12.8 M |
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| Circulating Supply: | 4,085,597 |
| Exchanges: | 15
| | Total Supply: | 9,999,997 |
| Markets: | 17
| | Max Supply: | — |
| Pairs: | 23
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The price of #TORN today is $3.13 USD.
The lowest TORN price for this period was $0, the highest was $3.13, and the exact current price of one TORN crypto coin is $3.12968.
The all-time high TORN coin price was $468.
Use our custom price calculator to see the hypothetical price of TORN with market cap of BTC or other crypto coins. |
Warning: US OFAC has officially banned the Tornado Cash and Tornado Cash Classic websites alongside all of the digital currency addresses allegedly associated with the site.
The code for Tornado Cash crypto currency is #TORN.
Tornado Cash is 2.6 years old. |
The current market capitalization for Tornado Cash is $12,786,622.
Tornado Cash is ranking downwards to #488 out of all coins, by market cap (and other factors). |
There is a big daily trading volume on #TORN.
Today's 24-hour trading volume across all exchanges for Tornado Cash is $2,447,064. |
The circulating supply of TORN is 4,085,597 coins, which is 41% of the total coin supply.
A highlight of Tornado Cash is it's limited supply of coins, as this tends to support higher prices due to supply and demand in the market. |
Tornado Cash Classic UI is now Open Source
By making our Tornado Cash Classic UI open source, our DAO takes a huge step towards transparency. 📢 BREAKING NEWS: Tornado Cash Classic UI is now completely OPEN-SOURCE! Ever wanted to dig in Tornado Cash Classic UI’s code? If so, well, your time has finally come! Anyone can read up & analyze the current UI of Tornado Cash Classic pools. Moreover, you can make a pull request to improve the project. Yes, you can… and we hope that you will. You *just* need to have some coding skills & few design ideas. 🤓 🎨 💻 Technically speaking, you can fork the given repository (https://github.com/tornadocash/tornado-classic-ui) as you wish to, modify its code, improve it with new features & make a pull request when you are done! You could even come up with a whole new cool design! The repository is under MIT License. NB: this news only deals with Tornado Cash Classic UI (a.k.a fixed-amount pools). Turning a UI open source requires a lot of upstream work. Indeed, it is necessary to perform several audits before releasing the code publicly to ensure that there are no vulnerabilities. Before that awesome news, the UI was already decentralized. Indeed, an open source command line tool and a minified version are available since 2020, allowing anyone to interact with Tornado Cash smart contracts and launch an UI easily. In addition, the official UI is accessible from several IPFS mirrors: tornadocash.eth.limo, tornad... 
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Tornado Cash New Decentralized Relayers Network
With a brand new decentralized relayers network, Tornado Cash just added an awaited utility to its tool-belt pushing its decentralization one step further 💫 This article has been written by the WUTornado Team (ayefda & bt11ba) 📢 BREAKING (or not that breaking if you carefully follow Tornado Cash twists & turns) NEWS: Tornado Cash decentralized relayers network interface is LIVE & READY FOR USE! This challenging project was led by Tornado Cash community. After months of brainstorming, heated discussions, several votes, analysis & audits, this new feature is finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. And so do Tornado Cash community members. The protocol’s 10th on-chain governance proposal has resumed last few week-ends with a massive supporting consensus from the community. After such an electoral success, all smart-contracts materializing this proposal have been rapidly deployed. 💡 If you are not fluent in tornadoes, Tornado Cash is a DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) where all major updates to existing functioning have to go through on-chain governance. This governance takes the shape of proposals where TORN voters can either vote `Yes`or `No`. The voting period is 5 days & at least 25,000 TORN have to be used for voting to validate each proposal. If your curiosity is torturing you & you want to learn everything about Tornado Cash governance, we refer you to either the p...
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Tornado Cash Has Been Deployed on Optimism
Tornado Cash continues spinning all around the (crypto) world. Its current stop: Optimism🌪 🌎 In the continuity of its recent expansions, Tornado Cash is progressively pursuing its conquest of the crypto space. The community has recently deployed Tornado Cash smart contracts on a new blockchain. Through a successful deployment ceremony, the protocol has newly settled on another Ethereum Layer-2. As of now, Tornado Cash is actively spinning on Optimism. With this latest addition, Tornado Cash currently functions on Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Polygon, xDAI Chain, Avalanche, Arbitrum and, last but not least, Optimism.Have you met Optimism? - Optimistic Ethereum (a.k.a Optimism) was launched in 2021 as a scaling solution for Ethereum applications. This blockchain acts as a Layer-2 allowing cheaper transaction fees. Its users have saved more than $275M in gas fees since its inception. As Optimism doesn’t have any native token, everything is paid for in ETH within the network. Therefore, the network also offers a bridge solution on gateway.optimism.io to make the usage of Layer-1 (Ethereum) tokens possible. As its name strongly suggests, Optimism uses the principle of Optimistic Rollups. If you wish to dig into this concept, it was presented in one of our previous posts. This Layer-2 network is mainly used since November 12th, the day after the release of its EVM equivalence: the Optimistic Virtual Machine (OVM). Daily ...
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Tornado Cash Introduces Arbitrary Amounts & Shielded Transfers
What if we told you that fixed amounts pools may no longer be your sole option on Tornado Cash? Tornado Cash Nova, the beta version of a new ETH pool allowing both arbitrary amounts & shielded transfers, was recently deployed and is ready for you to dive in. © This article was written by ayefda & bt11ba — WUTornado team (@WUTornado) We are glad to introduce Tornado Cash Nova, an upgraded Tornado Cash pool presenting unique features focused on improving user experience & expanding the protocol functionalities. This pool will allow users to deposit & withdraw arbitrary amounts of ETH. Up to now, all Tornado Cash pools had one thing in common: users could only deposit and withdraw a fixed amount of a given token within each pool. With the arrival of the Nova pool, this statement will no longer be true. This new version will also provide the possibility to make shielded transfers of deposited tokens while staying within the pool. So far, to transfer the custody of deposited funds, tokens needed to be withdrawn first. That is about to change! Users will be able to transfer a chosen amount of their deposited tokens (not necessarily all of them) to another address without needing to withdraw them from the pool. Speed & cost being the cornerstone of user experience, Tornado Cash Nova uses the Gnosis Chain as a Layer2 (former xDAI). Thanks to this, users can benefit from cheaper fees, while still having fa...
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Tornado.Cash Deployment Proposal On Arbitrum
Tornado.Cash keeps on spinning and is ready to settle on Arbitrum! This article was written by ayefda & bt11ba — WUTornado team (@WUTornado) Since the beginning of June 2021, Tornado.Cash has been continuously expanding and never stopped looking for new blockchains to spin on. So far, this journey has brought the protocol to deploy its contracts on Binance Smart Chain, Polygon, xDAI Chain & Avalanche. It is well known that tornadoes spin better when the weather is windy. Well, it is the autumn and Tornado.Cash is ready as ever to make its next move. To where? Arbitrum, the uprising Layer 2 solution for Ethereum.Contribute to Tornado’s Deployment on Arbitrum - The protocol’s smart contracts are all set and ready to spin on Arbitrum. They just need help from the community to get deployed & fly with their own wings. If you support the presence of Tornado.Cash on Arbitrum, you can participate in its deployment through the following link: https://ceremony-arbitrum.tornado.cash/Arbitrum in Few Words - Arbitrum One has been recently launched by Off Chain Labs as a Layer 2 solution for the Ethereum network. This blockchain allows a full access to Ethereum smart contracts & their features while acting as a second layer to relieve the traditional blockchain. Since its inception, Arbitrum One has been very successful thanks to its high performances & low costs on transactions. Its Total Locked Value went...
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Tornado.Cash Deployment Proposal On Avalanche
Tornado.Cash is ready as ever to spin on Avalanche. Join the ride! This article was written by ayefda & bt11ba — WUTornado team (@WUTornado) During the last few months, Tornado.Cash has been expanding its presence by settling on new blockchains. The protocol already got deployed on Binance Smart Chain, Polygon & xDai Chain. We are glad to inform you that our journey isn’t finished yet. Tornado.Cash is still on the move and intends to continue its conquest. The next stop? Avalanche. As of now, Tornado.Cash smart contracts are ready to join Avalanche, the fastest smart contracts platform in the industry. By getting deployed on Avalanche C-Chain, Tornado.Cash will be part of an extensive blockchain network known for its scalability, customization, high performances and fast transactions. It is time to welcome the AVAX token as a pool on Tornado.Cash!Contribute to Tornado’s Deployment on Avalanche - Tornado.Cash’s contracts for Avalanche are all set up and ready to go. However, in order to get effectively deployed, those contracts need the contribution of the community. If you support this proposal, you can help with this incoming deployment through the following app: https://avax-deploy.tornado.cash/ Let us continue helping our protocol expand its influence & reach a new scale!Avalanche in Few Words - Developed by Ava Labs, with the support of Emin Gün Sirer, Avalanche has been extending since 2020. I...
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Tornado.Cash Deployment Proposal On xDAI
The protocol is ready to settle in a new sidechain: xDAI, here we come!This article was written by ayefda & bt11ba — WUTornado team (@WUTornado) The month of June has been marked by the deployment of Tornado.Cash smart contracts on Binance Smart Chain & Polygon. Following its community members’ guidelines to settle on new chains, Tornado.Cash intends to continue conquering new horizons. The next stop? xDAI chain. As of now, Tornado.Cash is ready to get deployed on xDAI, the first U.S. dollar Ethereum-based stable blockchain.Contribute to Tornado.Cash Deployment on xDAI - To this extent, Tornado.Cash contracts are ready to enter on xDai soil. They just need a little push from the community to get effectively deployed. If you support this proposal, you can contribute by deploying the contracts through this app: https://xdai-deploy.tornado.cash/ Tornado.Cash needs you to take it out for a little spin on xDai. Let’s help our Tornado pursue its conquest of the crypto space! https://medium.com/media/a434ff7439b1750638ba9d2dd0b46544/hrefTornado.Cash * xDai Chain - With this deployment, Tornado.Cash intends to broaden its usage by creating new pools to welcome xDai, the chain native stable crypto-currency. xDai holders will then have access to privacy by using either: 100 xDai pool;, 1,000 xDai pool;, 10,000 xDai pool or, 100,000 xDai pool., By extending the protocol’s usage, Tornado.Cash aims to enable...
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Tornado.Cash Deployment Proposal On Polygon
We hope that you’re still buckled up and ready for our next ride on another chain! This article was written by ayefda & bt11ba, WUTornado team (@WUTornado) Following community members’ wishes to settle on new chains, Tornado.Cash never planned to stop at BSC. Only few weeks after its deployment on the Binance Smart Chain, the protocol is already pursuing its expansion. Our next stop? Polygon. As of now, Tornado.Cash is ready to be part of Polygon’s sidechain, the well-known Ethereum layer-2 solution. Getting deployed on Polygon will enable new users to spin with Tornado. It will also make the protocol present on a sidechain that is reputed for its transaction speed and network scalability.Contribute to Tornado.Cash Deployment on Polygon - To fulfill this purpose, Tornado.Cash contracts are ready. They just need a little help from the community to get effectively deployed. Tornado.Cash needs you to take it out for a little spin on Polygon. If you support this proposal, you can contribute by deploying the contracts through this app: https://polygon-deploy.tornado.cash/ Let’s help Tornado.Cash conquer the crypto space and reach a whole new scale.Polygon, You Said? - Everything changes quickly in the crypto ecosystem … even the names. You may better know Polygon under its previous designation: Matic Network. Among other features, Polygon offers a layer-2 scaling platform. Whenever we speak of layer-2, we aut...
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Tornado.Cash BSC Deployment Proposal
Buckle up and get ready for a ride on a new blockchain! This article was written by bt11ba, WUTornado team (@WUTornado) Now that Tornado.Cash is well established on the Ethereum Blockchain, the time has come to conquer new lands in the cryptocurrency world. Community members have expressed on several occasions their desire to see the Tornado settle on other sidechains. As an answer to these requests, Tornado.Cash is now ready to make its first steps on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC). Such a deployment will expand Tornado.Cash usage, attract new liquidity providers and allow privacy on further assets. In other words, it will allow Tornado to reach a whole new scale by opening a world of possibilities.It’s Time To Dive: Help Deploy Tornado on BSC! - To that end, Tornado’s contracts are finished and ready to spread their wings. They just need a little push from the community to take off and be set free on BSC (fyi, the rhyme is intended). If you support this proposal, we invite you to help deploy Tornado’s contracts on Binance Smart Chain through this app: https://bsc-deploy.tornado.cash/ Let’s contribute making our Tornado settle down on a new chain.Hello BSC, Here We Come! - Being deployed on the Binance Smart Chain will enable Tornado.Cash to extend its current offer. By creating a new pool, the protocol will allow Binance Coin (BNB) users to earn back their privacy. As the largest privacy solution provider on Ether...
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Gas price claimed anonymity mining a victim but now everyone can claim AP
In the last days of 2020, our community launched the Anonymity Mining program as part of the Tornado.Cash Governance Proposal. One of the main goals of the program is to increase the anonymity of the system by incentivizing a larger number and a longer stay of deposits in our anonymity sets. Today, we are delighted by the participation of our community, who have contributed to increase our liquidity by over 300% since the inception of the program. Liquidity in the 1 ETH anonymity set over time (source) In spite of all the excitement, soon after the launch, mining experienced a painful roadblock. The unexpectedly steep rise of gas prices in the network broke some of the assumptions considered in the design of our smart contracts. And while users have always been able to enter the mining program and accrue AP, for a period of time claiming rewards became awfully inconvenient. Let’s dive some more into the technical details and the clever solution that came to save the day. The Merkle Root Update The anonymity mining process is composed of four stages that involve user interaction with the network. As a refresher, the diagram below illustrates the process: All four transactions are carried out by individual users as they manage their own notes. Yet, a fifth operation (big red dot) has to take place in the life cycle of AP-mining note: the Merkle root update. The mining Merkle trees are data structures that register the bl...
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 | Tornado Cash Co-Founder Pleads Not Guilty to Money Laundering and Other ...
Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm has reportedly pleaded 'not guilty,' denying all charges related to money laundering exceeding $1 billion, including allegations connected to a cybercrime group associated with the North Korean government and violations of United States sanctions.
Storm, who is a naturalized US citizen and the co-founder of the controversial coin mixer, was granted release on a $2 billion bond shortly after his arrest in August.
Dev Pleads Not Guilty
According to an update by Inner City Press, Storm pleaded 'not guilty' before US District Judge Katherine Polk Failla in Manhattan after being charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to commit sanctions violations, and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business along with alleged co-conspirator and fellow developer, Roman Semenov, who was also indicted.
The charges carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
While the accusations against the Tornado Cash developers have attracted backlash from the authorities, the OFAC, on the other hand, continues to point to coin mixer's role in facilitating the laundering of funds for criminal actors since its creation in 2019, including the obfuscation of hundreds of millions of dollars in digital asset stolen by North Korea's notorious hackers, the Lazarus Group.
Furthermore, prosecutors had also stated that despite receiving numerous complaints from hacking victims, Tornado Cash neglected to put in place any know-your-custome...
|  | Tornado Cash Co-Founder Pleads Innocence Amidst Money Laundering and Hac...
On the 6th of September, 2023, the Inner City Press (ICP) delivered an account of the legal proceedings involving Roman Storm, one of the co-creators behind the ethereum (ETH) mixing protocol, Tornado Cash. In the courtroom drama that unfolded, Storm resolutely declared his innocence by pleading not guilty to the charges levied against him. Tornado Cash Co-Creator Roman Storm Denies Money Laundering Charges
As August drew to a close, the federal indictment of Roman Storm and his fellow co-founder, Roman Semenov, sent shockwaves through the cryptocurrency world. They faced charges that ranged from money laundering conspiracy to violating sanctions laws, all the way to operating an unlicensed money-transmitting enterprise. While Roman Storm was present in the courtroom, Semenov remained conspicuously at large, a fugitive abroad, as pointed out by the prosecutors during the hearing.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), during the proceedings, asserted a deeply troubling allegation. They contended that Storm, through Tornado Cash, had allegedly facilitated the operations of North Korea's notorious hackers, specifically the infamous Lazarus Group. The backdrop to this case, as divulged through ICP's social media thread, indicated potential victims of cyberattacks and the presence of highly sensitive 'classified materials' linked to the matter.
Intriguingly, it was revealed that Roman Storm shared legal representation with Virgil Griffith, another developer who faced accusations ...
|  | Tornado Cash Founders Accused, Court Rules in Favor of Grayscale Against...
The U.S. government has charged the founders of crypto mixing and privacy tool Tornado Cash with money laundering, calling them 'criminals.' In other news, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has ruled in favor of crypto asset manager Grayscale against the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). This and much more just below, in the latest Bitcoin.com News Week in Review.
Founders of Crypto Mixer Tornado Cash Accused of Laundering $1 Billion
The founders of the cryptocurrency mixing service Tornado Cash were charged last week with allegedly helping to launder more than $1 billion in digital currency, including funds taken by North Korean hackers.
Read More
Court Rules in Favor of Grayscale Against SEC in Bitcoin ETF Conversion Lawsuit
A D.C. court has ruled in favor of Grayscale, the largest crypto asset manager, in its lawsuit challenging the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s decision to deny the conversion of GBTC to a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF). The securities regulator “failed to explain its different treatment of similar products,” said the Circuit judge presiding over the Grayscale-SEC case.
Read More
Economist Peter Schiff Warns of 'Full-Blown Financial Crisis' Hitting US Economy Before Fed Reaches Inflation Target
Economist Peter Schiff has warned about an impending “full-blown financial crisis” that he expects to hit the U.S. economy before the Federal Reserve reaches its inflat...
|  | Tornado Cash Co-Founder Roman Storm Released on Bail
One of the founders of the Tornado Cash crypto mixer, Roman Storm, has been released on bail, his lawyer announced on social media. Storm, who was arrested in the United States, has been charged with money laundering and sanctions violations through the unlicensed platform. Storm Out on Bail After Indictment for His Role in Running Tornado Cash
Roman Storm, a co-founder of the cryptocurrency mixing service Tornado Cash, has been released on bail, his lawyer Brian Klein revealed Thursday in a post on X, formerly Twitter. The news came a day after Storm and another co-founder, Roman Semenov, were indicted on charges of conspiracy to launder money and violate sanctions laws while operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business.
Pleased to share that my client Roman Storm is already out on bail, although I remain very disappointed that the prosecutors charged him because he helped develop software - their novel legal theory has dangerous implications for all software developers.https://t.co/elmU8VqpYq
— Brian Klein (@brianeklein) August 24, 2023
U.S. authorities believe that the mixer has laundered more than $1 billion in digital currency. According to the indictment, unsealed on Wednesday, the total includes hundreds of millions of dollars that allegedly went to the Lazarus Group, a hacking organization working for North Korea.
Prosecutors accuse Storm and Semenov of creating Tornado Cash to allow cybercriminals to anonymize such transfers of crypto funds. While Storm...
|  | Tornado Cash Co-Founder Freed on Bail
Roman Storm - one of the co-founders of the crypto mixer Tornado Cash - is no longer detained, currently being out on bail.
The US authorities arrested the individual earlier this week over allegations that his entity facilitated money laundering operations and was involved with the North Korean hacking collective - the Lazarus Group.
'Disappointed With the Arrest'
Roman Storm's attorney - Brian Klein - revealed that his client is out on bail (without disclosing the amount of money posted for the release). He shared his disappointment with the detention, saying Storm aided the advancement of a software. In addition, he believes the US prosecutors' 'novel legal theory' could impact the operations of all software developers.
Pleased to share that my client Roman Storm is already out on bail, although I remain very disappointed that the prosecutors charged him because he helped develop software - their novel legal theory has dangerous implications for all software developers.https://t.co/elmU8VqpYq
— Brian Klein (@brianeklein) August 24, 2023
American law enforcement agents arrested Storm on August 23, accusing him and his associate Roman Semenov (another co-founder of Tornado Cash) of conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to operate an unauthorized money-transfer business, and conspiracy to violate US sanctions.
Prosecutors also suggested that despite the numerous complaints from hacking victims, the crypto mixer failed to implement know-your-customer ...
|  | Founders of Crypto Mixer Tornado Cash Accused of Laundering $1 Billion
The founders of the cryptocurrency mixing service Tornado Cash were charged Thursday with allegedly helping to launder more than $1 billion in digital currency, including funds taken by North Korean hackers.Department of Justice: ‘You Can’t Hide From Us Behind a Keyboard — Whether You’re a Hacker or Facilitator’
Roman Storm and Roman Semenov were indicted federally on charges of conspiracy to launder money, conspiracy to violate sanctions laws, and operation of an unlicensed money-transmitting business. Storm was arrested in Washington, and Semenov remains at large.
Prosecutors allege that Storm and Semenov intentionally designed Tornado Cash to let cyber criminals anonymize transfers of funds on the blockchain. The system was used to launder more than $1 billion in digital currency, violating U.S. sanctions, the indictment says.
Earlier this spring, Tornado Cash is believed to have aided in laundering part of the $600 million stolen by hackers sponsored by North Korea in a March attack on the Ronin Network, an Ethereum sidechain. Although the company had already put sanctions screening in place, Storm and Semenov reportedly used deceptive compliance practices to keep processing illicit transactions, prosecutors said.
“As alleged, Tornado Cash was an infamous cryptocurrency mixer that laundered more than $1 billion in criminal proceeds and violated U.S. sanctions,” Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New Y...
|  | Tornado Cash Co-Founder Roman Semenov Added to OFAC's Sanctions List
In an Aug. 23 statement on its website, OFAC indicated that it had added Roman Semenov, a Russian national who helped start Tornado Cash, to a list of people who are 'specially designated nationals.'
OFAC wrote down all of his known email addresses and his Ethereum (ETH) wallets.
Tornado Cash Co-Founders Facing Money Laundering Charge
Additionally, the FBI and the IRS detained Roman Storm, another co-founder of the crypto mixer, on August 24. Semenov and Storm were charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to operate an unauthorized money-transfer business, and conspiracy to violate sanctions.
According to Wally Adeyemo, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, Semenov and Storm allegedly laundered hundreds of millions of dollars worth of stolen crypto on behalf of the Lazarus Group, which is connected to the North Korean regime of Kim Jong Un.
Nearly a year ago, Semenov reported that his account was suspended on GitHub. Around the same time, a Tornado Cash developer, Alexey Pertsev, was arrested by the Dutch Finance and Information Service. He was released nine months later, on April 26, 2023, and is currently awaiting trial for facilitating crypto asset-based money laundering.
Judge Sides With OFAC
Semenov was added to OFAC’s list after a judge sided with the US Treasury on Aug. 18 in the Tornado Cash lawsuit. In that case, Tornado Cash tried to say that OFAC went beyond its authority and jurisdiction when it banned the crypto mixer.
The move by OFAC is ...
|  | US Court Classifies Tornado Cash as 'Person' in Verdict Echoing Ooki DAO...
A recent ruling by a U.S. judge declared that Tornado Cash holds the legal status of a “person.' This development came on the heels of a previous verdict in June, which recognized the decentralized autonomous organization Ooki DAO in a similar manner.U.S. Judiciary Designates Tornado Cash as 'Person' in OFAC Case
In a legal face-off with the U.S. government, specifically the OFAC, the plaintiffs posited that Tornado Cash is simply decentralized software. On the contrary, the government viewed it as an organization facilitating cryptocurrency mixing. Central to the dispute was whether the OFAC held the power to impose sanctions on Tornado Cash, and if such an action infringes on the plaintiffs' freedom of speech.
Yet, the court dismissed the plaintiffs' stance, recognizing Tornado Cash as an entity fit for OFAC designation. The court reasoned that Tornado Cash aligns with the regulatory description of an 'association,' given the collaborative efforts of its founders, developers, and its DAO governance model towards shared objectives. U.S. judge Robert Pitman declared:
The record sufficiently supports OFAC’s determination that the founders, the developers, and the Tornado Cash DAO have acted jointly to promote and govern Tornado Cash and to profit from these activities.
Furthermore, Judge Pitman identified that Tornado Cash holds a vested interest in the smart contracts it establishes, which aligns with the regulatory classification of 'property.' These contracts, w...
|  | Tornado Cash Loses Lawsuit Against US Government: Report
Tornado Cash, the most well-known crypto mixing service, was sanctioned by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) last August.
The decision was the result of a long-lasting spat between the regulator and the crypto mixer dating back to at least 2018 when two persons of special interest to the U.S. government were found to be using its services.
Support From Coinbase
Although crypto mixers do, indeed, appeal to cybercriminals, their main purpose is to grant extra privacy to those who want it. In order for a crypto mixer to work as intended, the number of benign users must be much higher than the amount of bad actors using it. With no sizable amounts of assets to mix, the operation falls flat.
It is with this distinction in mind that Coinbase supported Tornado Cash’s appeal against the sanctions.
Rights are rarely secured on a path that is always and . We continue to believe Plaintiffs' challenge to OFAC's Tornado Cash action is right. We’ve always known that Fifth Circuit review is required to resolve these issues, and we continue to support them on appeal. 1/4 pic.twitter.com/Tz8FkFCSf2
— paulgrewal.eth (@iampaulgrewal) August 17, 2023
However, the appeal has since fallen flat on its face, according to Bloomberg.
Vested Interest
According to court documents, Tornado Cash’s argument focused on its definition as a “decentralized, open-source software project made of the smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain.”
However, the mi...
| | Tornado Cash Attacker Submits Proposal to Revert Governance Control, TOR...
Popular crypto mixer Tornado Cash lost total control of its governance to an attacker who deployed a malicious contract to access thousands of votes. The incident was first detected by @samczsun, a researcher at web3-focused investment firm Paradigm, over the weekend.
According to samczsun’s tweet, the attacker claimed to have used the same logic as a proposal passed earlier in creating their malicious proposal without disclosing that they added an extra function.
In a more recent development, though, the attacker 'posted a new proposal to restore the state of governance,' according to a post on the mixer's community forum.
TornadoCash attacker deployed new proposal that, if executed, would seemingly revert the damage done to the Governance functionality. Either they're giga trolling or it will end up being an expensive but not disastrous lesson in Governance security.https://t.co/QMWYFsi8kP
— 0xdeadf4ce (@0xdface) May 21, 2023
Attacker Seizes Tornado Cash Governance
Immediately after Tornado Cash voters passed the proposal, the exploiter implemented the emergencyStop function and updated the proposal logic to grant themselves 1.2 million fake votes. The attacker’s votes are more than 700,000 legitimate ones, so they have gained full control of the crypto mixer’s governance.
With complete control, the attacker can do whatever they want, like withdrawing all the locked votes, draining all tokens in the governance contract, and bricking the router. How...
|  | Tornado Cash Developer Will Finally Be Released From Jail: Report
Alexey Pertsev, the developer of crypto privacy mixer Tornado Cash, will be released from jail next week and await trial at home, according to a report from Blockworks.
The news reportedly comes from Eléonore Blanc, Pertsev’s wife, who claimed over Telegram that the developer would be coming home next week.
Pertsev was arrested in Amsterdam in August 2022 shortly after the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Tornado Cash, creating unprecedented restrictions against the development and use of smart contract code.
The developer was later denied bail and forced to remain imprisoned for months, despite no formal charges being laid at the time. However, Pertsev was found to have worked at a Russian firm called Digital Security, which had been flagged for providing support to the nation’s FSB.
Pertsev’s arrest sparked outrage across the cryptocurrency space for what appeared to be the overly harsh treatment of someone who had merely developed software.
Others including Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire were concerned about the precedent established by the Treasury Department in blocking the functioning of open-source software.
“It raises extraordinary questions about privacy and security on the internet and the future of public internet digital currency,” he said in August.
Despite the sanctions, Tornado Cash is still technically accessible and continues to generate vo...
| | BTC.com's Stolen Funds Funneled Through Tornado Cash and CEXs: Report
Prominent cryptocurrency mining pool BTC.com suffered a cyberattack last month that resulted in a significant loss of company and user funds. New details have emerged regarding the whereabouts of the stolen funds.
According to the market research firm, X-explore's analysis, most stolen assets were transferred to Tornado Cash while some amounts were also transferred to centralized exchanges Binance and Kucoin.
A BTC wallet transferred 32.5 BTC, worth around $550k, and is suspected to be stolen. The perpetrators could have laundered the funds with the help of a centralized BTC Mixer.
X-explore also claimed that a total of 1,964 ETH, worth around $2.4 million, was deposited to four new addresses and subsequently flowed to the coin mixer as well as other exchanges.
As reported earlier, the attackers pilfered digital assets worth $700k owned by BTC.com’s clients and nearly $2.3 million in asset value owned by its parent firm, BIT Mining Limited on December 3rd.
The cyberattack was reported to the Shenzhen law enforcement authorities in China a few weeks later, which then launched an investigation on Friday and began collecting evidence.
Upon discovering the breach, BTC.com said its team implemented technology designed to block and intercept hackers.
BTC.com happens to be one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency mining pools accounting for 3.8% of total mining pool distribution over the past seven days. The latest data suggested that its hash rate stood at 10.27 exaha...
|  | Coin Center Sues US Treasury Over Tornado Cash Ban — Lawsuit Says ...
The non-profit that focuses on policy issues facing cryptocurrencies, Coin Center, has filed a lawsuit against the Treasury department, the secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, and the Office of Foreign Assets Control's (OFAC) director Andrea Gacki. Coin Center's court filing says that the government's sanctioning of Tornado Cash exceeds the Treasury's statutory authority. The Coin Center lawsuit insists that Americans have a right to privacy and a right to protect their property, as Tornado Cash can be used for these benefits in a legitimate fashion.Coin Center's Lawsuit Insists the US Treasury and OFAC Banning Tornado Cash Exceeded Their Statutory Authority
Coin Center is following Coinbase's lead as it has sued the U.S. Treasury over the Tornado Cash ban, according to a court filing registered on October 12. Coinbase announced its lawsuit against the government's department on September 8, 2022, in a blog post called 'Defending Privacy in Crypto.' The non-profit Coin Center, an organization that specializes in addressing policy toward cryptocurrencies and blockchain tech, hinted at engaging with the Treasury on August 15.
The blog post published in mid-August said that by the U.S. Treasury treating autonomous code as a 'person,' 'OFAC exceeds its statutory authority.' The lawsuit filed on Wednesday names OFAC director Andrea Gacki, and the current secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen. The suit highlights that the Treasury's 'defiance of this statutory element assumes ...
|  | Tornado Cash Sees Drop In Activity After U.S. Treasury Sanctions –...
The value of Tornado Cash is decreasing, not due to market factors but because of recent controversies. The Office of Foreign Assets Control recently added Tornado Cash to its list of Special Designated Nationals. That means no one from the United States may use the token.
By taking this action, OFAC has effectively banned Tornado Cash from participating in one of the most important cryptocurrency markets.
Many owners of Tornado Cash's native coin, TORN, also liquidated their investments in response to the news. From its high closing of $30.25 on August 7th, TORN has fallen 87.03% to its current price.
Tornado Cash Linked To Nefarious Activities
Even before the OFAC decided to add Tornado Cash to its special list, TORN had been linked to multiple high-value crypto crimes.
The Lazarus Group, perpetrators of one of the largest crypto thefts in history, employed TORN as part of their plot to conceal the true origin of their stolen funds. The breach was carried out on the Ronin Network, an Ethereum-based sidechain.
In March of 2022, the network hosted game Axie Infinity, which saw its highest player count. Because of this, malicious actors like the Lazarus Group were able to zero in on the system and the game with relative ease. The theft led to the loss of 173,600 Ether and 25.5 million USDC.
The total dollar amount is $625,000,000. Later this year, the OFAC will penalize the project and all connected wallets due to this attack.
Chart: TradingView.com
Sanctions ...
|  | Github Partially Reinstates Tornado Cash Codebase, Open Source Code Set ...
The internet hosting and software development subsidiary of Microsoft, Github, has partially unbanned the Tornado Cash repositories following the recent sanctions enforced by the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC). Github's decision follows the U.S. Treasury updating the public, noting that U.S. persons can copy, view, and discuss the open-source code. Github's partial reinstatement lets repository visitors look at the Tornado Cash codebase in read-only mode.Github Reinstates Tornado Cash Repositories in Read-Only Mode
The cryptocurrency community has been discussing the internet hosting and software development platform Github after the service decided to partially reinstate the Tornado Cash open source code on the platform. On August 8, 2022, the U.S. Treasury Department's regulatory watchdog OFAC sanctioned the ethereum mixer Tornado Cash and several ethereum addresses associated with the platform. When OFAC's sanctions were published, third-party platforms started to take action and one open source programmer was banned from Github.
'My Github account was just suspended,' the software developer Roman Semenov said at the time. 'Is writing an open source code illegal now?' Additionally, the Microsoft-owned Github removed the Tornado Cash codebase repositories, and no one could access the code via the software development platform.
On September 13, 2022, after significant criticism from the crypto community, the U.S. Treasury updated the public...
|  | GitHub Reverses Tornado Cash Ban But There's a Catch
The US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) assigned popular crypto tumbler Tornado Cash as an entity on the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) sanction list last month which triggered an outcry from privacy and free speech advocates. Subsequently, Microsoft-owned GitHub removed its source code as well as terminated the user accounts of three individuals who contributed code to the project.
In a recent turn of events, the platform unbanned the coin mixer and contributors on the platform. Notifying that the repos are, however, currently in 'read-only' mode, Ethereum dev Preston Van Loon tweeted that the hosting service is yet to reverse all actions and return the repositories to their former status.
Loon believes the move is still 'progress from an outright ban.'
Clarification on Interaction With Tornado Cash
Tornado Cash's return to GitHub follows clarification guidance issued by the United States Department of the Treasury earlier this month that states merely 'interacting' with ??s open-source code, with certain provisions, would not violate sanctions imposed by the OFAC.
'U.S. persons would not be prohibited by U.S. sanctions regulations from copying the open-source code and making it available online for others to view, as well as discussing, teaching about, or including open-source code in written publications.
Similarly, U.S. persons would not be prohibited by U.S. sanctions regulations from visiting the Internet archives for the Tornado Cash historical website, no...
| | Tornado Cash Dev Previoulsy Employed by Company With Links to Russia's F...
Tornado Cash was added to the US sanctions list by the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) on August 8. Two days later, Alexey Pertsev, a coder tied to the crypto mixing service, was arrested by Dutch authorities.
The blacklisting and the subsequent events sparked an outcry from privacy proponents, with many protesting and engaging in acts of civil disobedience.
But according to intelligence firm, Kharon, Pertsev was formerly employed by a company linked to Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB). The report said,
'The individual, identified by various media reports as a developer of Tornado Cash, is a former employee of a Russian company sanctioned for providing support to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), Kharon has found.'
Tornado Cash's Links to Russian Security Agency
The Kharon report confirmed that Tornado Cash was developed by a Delaware-registered corporation called PepperSec, with Pertsev being its founder and CEO. Pertsev, a Netherlands resident, reportedly worked at Digital Security OOO as an information security specialist and developer of smart contracts.
As per a press release dated June 11, 2018, Digital Security, which happens to be a Russian entity, was flagged by the United States Treasury Department for providing material and technological support to the FSB.
The Treasury had also alleged that, as of 2015, Digital Security was engaged in a project that would increase the offensive cyber capabilities of Russia's intelligence services.
Denied...
|  | Tornado Cash Developer Denied Bail, Will Remain in Prison for Extra 90 D...
Alexey Pertsev, developer of the U.S.-sanctioned Ethereum-based cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash, will have to spend a minimum of 90 days in jail, although he is yet to be charged with a crime.
The arrest of the Tornado Cash developer has sparked outrage and concerns from the crypto community, which believes that such action could have grave implications for other open-source developers.
A court hearing in the Netherlands held on Wednesday (August 24, 2022) ruled that Pertsev will have to be retained for an extra 90 days. The ruling came after the judge rejected requests from Pertsev's lawyers to grant the defendant bail.
According to a Dutch court spokesperson, an initial public hearing must take place within the 90 days.
As previously reported by CryptoPotato, Pertsev was arrested by Dutch authorities in Amsterdam on the suspicion that the developer covered up illicit financial flows and enabled money laundering through Tornado Cash.
The arrest has caused several protests among crypto advocates, with concerns that such an action could start a wave of arrests of open-source developers who cannot control how their codes are used.
There is a current online petition seeking Pertsev's release. It is looking to gather 2,500 signatures and has already been signed by 2,485 people. Also, over 50 people gathered in Amsterdam's Dam Square to protest the arrest.
The post Tornado Cash Developer Denied Bail, Will Remain in Prison for Extra 90 Days (Report) appeared first on CryptoPota...
|  | Tether Hasn't Sanctioned Tornado Cash Transfers, Unlike USDC
Tether – the issuer of USDT, the world’s largest stablecoin – is yet to freeze addresses associated with the privacy protocol Tornado Cash.
That means USDT holders can still technically use the smart contract to obfuscate their funds. However, it remains unclear whether Tether’s permissiveness amounts to a violation of U.S. sanctions.
Tether and Tornado
According to a statement from Tether on Wednesday, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has established no expectations that stablecoin issuers must freeze secondary market addresses operated by sanctioned entities.
Tether clarified that it would willingly freeze a private wallet address (not exchanges/services) if asked by a verified law enforcement agent. However, none have made any such request of the company pertaining to Tornado Cash, despite Tether’s near-daily contact with relevant entities.
Until it receives such a request, Tether said it would be “reckless” to enact a unilateral freeze against secondary market addresses.
“Even if Tether recognizes suspicious activities on such an address, completing a freeze without the verified instruction of law enforcement and other government agencies might interfere with ongoing and sophisticated law enforcement investigations,” the company explained.
Tether noted that, in some instances, it has been specifically instructed by law enforcement not to freeze potentially criminal addresses. Do...
|  | Stablecoin Issuer Tether Won't Freeze Tornado Cash Addresses, Says Prema...
While the crypto community is still talking about the U.S. government banning the ethereum mixing platform Tornado Cash, the stablecoin issuer Tether Holdings Limited revealed on Wednesday that the company would not 'freeze Tornado Cash addresses.' Tether's recently published blog post about the subject says the company is waiting for instructions from law enforcement.Tether Has No Plans to Freeze Tornado Cash-Associated Private Wallets and Is Waiting to Hear From Law Enforcement Officials
On August 8, the U.S. Treasury Department's financial watchdog, the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC), banned the ethereum mixing application Tornado Cash and ever since then, OFAC's sanctions enforcement has been met with controversy. Of course, OFAC's actions caused a ripple effect and a number of companies like Circle Financial's and Coinbase's Centre consortium, Github, and Discord took action. For instance, developers were suspended from Github, the Tornado Cash Discord server was deleted, and reports noted that Centre blacklisted dozens of ethereum addresses and froze 75,000 USDC.
Tether Holds Firm on Decision Not To Freeze Tornado Cash Addresses, Awaits Law Enforcement Instruction https://t.co/zpsI9lKLlf
- Tether (@Tether_to) August 24, 2022
According to a blog post published by Tether Holdings Limited published 16 days after OFAC's ban, the company explains that as of right now, it's not freezing USDT assets held within the Tornado Cash mixer. Tether says the company works wi...
| | Researchers Reupload Sanctioned Tornado Cash Code on GitHub
The US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)'s placement of popular crypto tumbler Tornado Cash as an entity on the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) sanction list has raised many eyebrows.
The subsequent removal of its source code from the Microsoft-owned GitHub, which also shut down the user accounts of three individuals who contributed code to the project, prompted an outcry from privacy and free speech advocates.
While forks of the open source software have remained on GitHub, Matthew Green, a cryptography professor at Johns Hopkins University, this week published another fork of the software with the support of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
Green and his EFF colleague Kurt Opsahl were not happy with the removal of Tornado Cash's source code from Github and had argued that the hosting service had suppressed speech with the move.
Code is Speech
The main reason behind the re-uploading of the code is to test whether its removal is ever the appropriate response to sanctions. Opsahl, who happens to be EFF's general counsel, argued that 'improvements and other contributions to this fork, or any other, are protected speech, and their publication cannot be constitutionally prohibited by the government under either standard of scrutiny.'
Green also expressed a similar sentiment and revealed that if GitHub disables it again, the advocacy organization plans to challenge that decision in court. In an explanatory note, the researcher wrote,
'In my work as a researcher...
|  | Kraken CEO Doubts Decision to Ban Tornado Cash Will Survive in Court: Re...
The shutdown of Tornado Cash by the US Treasury Department on August 8 has made Kraken CEO Josse Powell question the constitutionality of the decision.
In an interview with Bloomberg TV on Tuesday, Powell doubted if the Treasury’s move will withstand judicial scrutiny.
Tornado Cash allows users to conceal sources and destinations of funds by mixing several users’ coins before sending them to their destination addresses.
Powell argued that banning Tornado Cash because it is being used by criminals is similar to banning email services because some criminals may be employing them.
Kraken, USDC Block Tornado Addresses
Meanwhile, Kraken has blocked accounts linked to Tornado Cash following the United States Treasury Department’s sanctions against the crypto mixer platform. Earlier, USDC stablecoin, run by a consortium of Circle and Coinbase, had similarly blocked addresses linked to the mixer.
Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said Circle and Coinbase must follow the Treasury’s sanctions against Tornado Cash in line with Bank Secrecy Act.
However, Allaire, too, questioned the ban. “It raises extraordinary questions about privacy and security on the internet, and the future of public internet digital currency,” he said.
Powell referred to Circle’s decision to block Tornado Cash addresses because of the US Treasury’s crackdown on the crypto mixing platform as a move to control decentralized networks.
“Having a digital currency that&...
|  | Coin Center Says OFAC's Tornado Cash Ban 'Exceeds Statutory Authority,' ...
On August 15, the non-profit that focuses on policy issues facing crypto assets, Coin Center, published a blog post that says the organization is looking at the legality of the recent Tornado Cash sanctions enforced by the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC). The post, published by Coin Center's Jerry Brito and Peter Van Valkenburgh, explains that by treating autonomous code as a 'person' 'OFAC exceeds its statutory authority.'Coin Center Insists 'OFAC Has Overstepped Its Legal Authority'
Coin Center's executive director Jerry Brito and director of research Peter Van Valkenburgh had a lot to say in a blog post published Monday that talks about whether or not autonomous code, or a smart contract, can be considered a sanctioned 'person.' Coin Center's Brito and Valkenburgh believe the U.S. government sent some kind of intended signal when OFAC sanctioned Tornado Cash. One that makes it so U.S. citizens are aware specific tools and software 'should not be used by Americans even for entirely legitimate purposes.'
'As we suspected, we believe that OFAC has overstepped its legal authority by adding certain Tornado Cash smart contract addresses to the SDN List, that this action potentially violates constitutional rights to due process and free speech, and that OFAC has not adequately acted to mitigate the foreseeable impact its action would have on innocent Americans,' the Coin Center blog post explains.
Moreover, Coin Center believes that OFAC's design...
|  | Tornado Cash Governance Token TORN Shudders More Than 57% Since the US G...
Amid the crackdown against Tornado Cash, associated addresses, contributing developers, and anyone who uses the mixing platform, the project's governance token called TORN has shuddered in value. TORN is an ERC20 with a fixed supply that is leveraged for governance proposals and voting. During the last seven days, the Tornado Cash governance token has lost 57.6% in value against the U.S. dollar. Tornado Cash Token Loses More Than Half of Its Value This Week
It seems that everything Tornado Cash touched is tainted and during the last week, the project's governance token tornado cash (TORN) has lost more than half of its USD value. TORN is an ERC20-based token that was launched in February 2021, and 5% of the supply was airdropped to users who had leveraged the mixing application before the snapshot.
There's approximately 1,511,065 TORN tokens and 500,000 TORN was airdropped to the Tornado Cash community. Since the U.S. government cracked down on Tornado Cash and banned the mixing application alongside associated ETH-based addresses, TORN has taken a severe market beating.
TORN has seen $43.4 million in global trade volume and a lot of it stems from selling. Popular crypto exchanges that list TORN include Binance, Bingx, and Bitget. 69.93% of all TORN trades today are paired against USDT, which is followed by BUSD (24.73%), BTC (3.92%), WETH (1.18%), and USDC (0.24%).
Additionally, 30% of the TORN stash was reserved for devs and contributors, and vested for a three-year linear...
|  | Tornado Cash Developer is Arrested in Amsterdam
On August 10, the Dutch Crime Agency (FIOD) announced the arrest of a 29-year-old developer of Tornado Cash, a cryptocurrency mixer built on the Ethereum network that was sanctioned earlier this month by the U.S. Treasury Department.
The U.S. banned Tornado Cash because the platform had a large-scale currency laundering lending potential and helped anonymize the funds of several individuals linked to criminal activities.
According to the FIOD, the suspect is allegedly involved in crimes of concealing illicit financial flows and facilitating money laundering.
Tornado Cash Facilitated Money Laundering Activities
The FIOD noted that cryptocurrency mixers tend to facilitate money laundering, as these platforms are mainly used to increase anonymity in financial transactions.
'Tornado Cash is a mixing service for cryptocurrencies. The online service makes it possible to conceal the origin or destination of cryptocurrencies. The (criminal) origin of the cryptocurrencies is often not or hardly checked by such mixing services. Users of a mixing service mostly do this to increase their anonymity.'
Tornado Cash has been under investigation since June 2022 by the FIOD due to its possible links with criminal organizations like the state-funded hacking group Lazarus. However, as a protocol, it would be hard to sanction because its governance decisions are made in consensus through a DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) with no central entity behind it.
This has been a matter of conc...
|  | Crypto Community Responds to Tornado Cash Sanctions, Privacy Advocates S...
The U.S. government banning the ethereum mixing service Tornado Cash and the enforcement that has followed has the crypto community in an uproar about the event. A large number of crypto and privacy advocates have spoken out against the actions the government has taken so far, and the nonprofit advocacy group Fight for the Future calls the ban 'a threat to the future of financial privacy.'Advocacy Group Fight for the Future Says US Government Threatens Financial Privacy - 'There Are Many Legitimate Reasons to Seek Anonymity in Financial Transactions'
On August 8, 2022, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned virtual currency mixer Tornado Cash. The U.S. government claims that the application was used to allegedly 'launder more than $7 billion worth of virtual currency since its creation in 2019.' Following the ban, Github contributors were suspended from the software repository platform and on August 12, the Tornado Cash Discord server was deleted.
We can add @discord to the shame list too since apparently they decided to go *far* above and beyond and ban the community run/operated discord server. God forbid people even *discuss* the thing that was unjustly sanctioned…
- Micah Zoltu (@MicahZoltu) August 12, 2022
The same day, Dutch law enforcement revealed that the Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD) arrested a 29-year-old unidentified person that is accused of developing Tornado Cash. A report stemming...
|  | Dutch Law Enforcement Arrests Suspected Tornado Cash Developer in Amster...
According to a statement from the Dutch Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD), law enforcement officials in Amsterdam arrested an unnamed 29-year-old suspected of developing the ethereum mixing application Tornado Cash. FIOD accuses the suspect of 'concealing criminal financial flows and facilitating money laundering through the mixing of cryptocurrencies.'Netherlands Law Enforcement Takes Suspected Tornado Cash Dev Into Custody, Officials Hint About the Possibility of Future Arrests
Four days ago, the U.S. Treasury Department's watchdog, the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC), banned the ethereum mixing application Tornado Cash and 44 associated Ethereum-based addresses. Now Dutch law enforcement has revealed that FIOD has arrested a 29-year-old unidentified person that is accused of developing Tornado Cash. The press release published by the Dutch authorities notes that the suspect will be brought before a judge and further hints that 'multiple arrests are not ruled out.'
Dutch investigators say that since 2019, Tornado Cash recorded a turnover of around $7 billion and law enforcement officials believe 'at least one billion dollars' worth of cryptocurrencies of criminal origin passed through the mixer.' The individual's identity has not been disclosed by officials in Amsterdam but Dutch authorities stress that 'advanced technologies, such as decentralised organisations' are getting extra attention from the FIOD if they are suspected of money laundering pra...
|  | ETH Mixer Tornado Cash Reveals Blocking OFAC Sanctioned Ethereum Address...
According to the project's official Twitter account, Tornado Cash, the ethereum mixing service that allows participants to shuffle ether, is blocking flagged ethereum addresses listed on the Office of Foreign Assets Control's (OFAC) Specially Designated Nationals And Blocked Persons list (SDN). The decision follows the recent OFAC update, that lists the Ronin exploiter's ethereum address, and further notes that the ether wallet is allegedly associated with the infamous North Korean hackers, Lazarus Group.Ethereum Mixer Tornado Cash Blocks OFAC Sanctioned Addresses
Tornado Cash announced on April 15, 2022, that the project is leveraging a Chainalysis oracle to block OFAC sanctioned wallets. 'Tornado Cash uses [a] Chainalysis oracle contract to block OFAC sanctioned addresses from accessing the dapp,' the official Twitter account said on Friday. 'Maintaining financial privacy is essential to preserving our freedom, however, it should not come at the cost of non-compliance,' the Tornado Cash Twitter account added.
The decision comes after the U.S. Treasury and OFAC published an update concerning the Ronin bridge hacker's ethereum wallet. The ethereum address that was used by the Ronin bridge exploiter is now sanctioned and U.S.-based companies and citizens are banned from transacting with the address. According to the OFAC update, the address is associated with the North Korean hacking organization known as Lazarus Group. Following the decision, Tornado Cash got a lot of critici...
| | Tornado Cash Reveals Using Chainalysis Oracle Contract
The integration comes on the heels of coin mixers drawing heat from the Western countries that have imposed sanctions to cripple Russia's economy and penalize President Vladimir Putin, high-ranking officials, as well as individuals who have benefited from his regime.
As per the official tweet, the move aims to block sanctioned addresses by the US financial intelligence and enforcement agency, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), from accessing the decentralized application.
OFAC contains a list of sanctioned crypto wallets.
While maintaining that financial privacy is of utmost importance, Tornado Cash also acknowledged that it should not come at the cost of non-compliance.
Roman Semenov, the founder of the protocol, clarified that the changes apply to the front-end only and not the smart contracts. The exec said the 'smart contracts are immutable.'
A blockade on the front-end demonstrates a halfway restriction after Semenov noted that 'it is technically impossible' to impose sanctions on decentralized protocols.
Tornado Cash, known for obfuscating the money trail, is one of the very few protocols to have emerged as an Ethereum staple since its inception nearly two years ago.
However, the bad press surrounding the protocol isn't new, as it has been treated with suspicion since its very launch.
To top that, its connection with the unpreceded $655 billion security breach on blockchain bridge Ronin Network wherein the exploiter reportedly moved the stolen Ether...
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