{"id":125565,"date":"2025-03-21T16:18:28","date_gmt":"2025-03-21T16:18:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/?p=125565"},"modified":"2025-03-21T16:18:28","modified_gmt":"2025-03-21T16:18:28","slug":"tornado-mixer-dropped-from-us-blacklist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/?p=125565","title":{"rendered":"Tornado mixer dropped from US blacklist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Source: Cointelegraph.com NewsThe US Treasury Department has dropped cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash from its sanctions list, the agency said on March 21.\u00a0<br \/>\nThe removal follows a January ruling by a US appeals court, which said the Treasury\u2019s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) cannot sanction Tornado\u2019s smart contracts because they are not the property of any foreign national.\u00a0<br \/>\nAccording to the January court ruling, \u201cTornado Cash\u2019s immutable smart contracts (the lines of privacy-enabling software code) are not the \u2018property\u2019 of a foreign national or entity, meaning  OFAC overstepped its congressionally defined authority.\u201d<br \/>\nIn a March 21 statement, the Treasury said OFAC removed several dozen Tornado-affiliated smart contract addresses on the Ethereum blockchain network from its sanctions list.\u00a0<br \/>\nTornado\u2019s native token, Tornado Cash (TORN), is up around 60% on the news, according to data from CoinMarketCap.\u00a0<br \/>\nAs of March 21, TORN has a market capitalization of around $73 million and a fully diluted value (FDV) of nearly $140 million, the data shows.\u00a0<br \/>\nOFAC is the Treasury\u2019s office for administering economic and trade sanctions on states and foreign nationals.<br \/>\nTornado Cash lets users pool crypto deposits into a mixer and then withdraw it later to different wallet addresses, making the original funding source difficult to track.<br \/>\nTORN is up around 60% on the news. Source: CoinMarketCapRelated: Tornado Cash dev Alexey Pertsev\u2019s bail a \u2018crucial step\u2019 in getting fair trial, defense says<br \/>\nMoney laundering allegations<br \/>\nIn August 2022, OFAC sanctioned Tornado Cash after alleging the blockchain protocol helped launder cryptocurrency stolen by Lazarus Group, a North Korean hacking outfit.\u00a0<br \/>\nLazarus Group has allegedly stolen billions of dollars in crypto through various cyberattacks.<br \/>\nIn February, Lazarus was accused of pilfering $1.4 billion from digital asset exchange Bybit in the largest-ever crypto exploit.\u00a0<br \/>\nIn total, Tornado Cash has purportedly facilitated the laundering of more than $7 billion in illicit funds since the protocol was launched in 2019, according to the US Treasury.<br \/>\nIn 2024, a Dutch court found Alexey Pertsev, one of Tornado Cash\u2019s developers, guilty of money laundering and sentenced him to 64 months in prison.\u00a0<br \/>\nIn February, Pertsev was released on house arrest, while he prepared an appeal of his conviction.\u00a0<br \/>\nThe Ethereum Foundation has pledged to donate $1.25 million for Pertsev\u2019s defense.\u00a0<br \/>\n\u201cPrivacy is normal, and writing code is not a crime,\u201d the EF wrote in an X post while announcing the donation on Feb. 26.<br \/>\nMagazine: Did Telegram\u2019s Pavel Durov commit a crime? Crypto lawyers weigh in<a href=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/news\/tornado-mixer-dropped-from-us-blacklist?utm_source=rss_feed&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=rss_partner_inbound\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"feedzy-rss-link-icon\" rel=\"noopener\">Read More<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: Cointelegraph.com NewsThe US Treasury Department has dropped cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash from its sanctions list, the agency said on March 21.\u00a0 The removal follows a January ruling by a&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125565"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=125565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125565\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=125565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=125565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=125565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}