An anonymous user is ongoing to transmit small quantities of ethereum (ETH) from the Tornado Cash wallet towards the public addresses of prominent figures, varying from celebrities to crypto CEOs, presumably in an effort to protest from the US Treasury‘s decision to sanction the blending service. Meanwhile, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has openly accepted he used Tornado Cash previously, and even for good causes.
Eventually following the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) enforced sanctions on crypto mixer Tornado Cash because of its alleged role in money washing operations, an anonymous user, or several users, began delivering ETH .1 transactions in the mixer to prominent figures.
A few of the more notable figures include American television host Jimmy Fallon, crypto exchange Coinbase Chief executive officer John Lance armstrong, basketball star Shaquille O’Neal, Mark Zuckerberg’s sister Randi Zuckerberg, and a variety of other well-known celebrities for example Logan Paul and Beeple.
Etherscan transactions further show that the majority major crypto exchanges, including Binance, FTX, Kraken, OKX, Bitfinex, Gate.io, and Gemini, have obtained small quantities of ETH from Tornado Cash. In addition, the Ethereum Foundation‘s treasury and also the official Ukrainian crypto donation accounts happen to be incorporated.
Included in the sanctions, all Americans, in addition to US-based companies, are barred from getting together with Tornado Cash. Failing to conform could lead to penalties of USD 50,000 to USD 10,000,000 in fines and 10 to 3 decades jail time.
“U.S. persons and persons otherwise susceptible to OFAC jurisdiction, including businesses that facilitate or participate in online commerce or process transactions using digital currency, have the effect of making certain that they don’t participate in unauthorized transactions prohibited by OFAC sanctions, for example dealings with blocked persons or property, or participating in prohibited trade or investment-related transactions,” the Treasury’s website reads.
Particularly, because the receipt of tokens from Tornado Funds are not willful and comes with no prior understanding or engagement, it appears unlikely that could be described as a breach from the sanctions. However, its effects still remain unclear.
Meanwhile, Buterin has became a member of the cult of users criticizing the sanctions against Tornado Cash, stating that the privacy tool doubles permanently causes. Particularly, the Ethereum mastermind stated he used the mixer to give to Ukrainian causes while protecting the grateful recipients. “I’ll out myself as somebody who has utilized TC to give for this exact cause,” he authored.
Inside a follow-up tweet, the Russian-born programmer stated he didn’t make use of the mixing plan to safeguard themself.
Meanwhile, US-based blockchain analysis company Chainalysis contended that, since becoming active in August 2019, Tornado Cash has gotten over USD 7.6bn price of ETH, “a big part of that have originate from illicit or high-risk sources.”
Per their report,
“1 / 2 of individuals funds originated from DeFi protocols, but 18% originated from sanctioned entities (almost entirely, we ought to note, before individuals entities were sanctioned), while just below 11% were funds stolen using their company cryptocurrency services and protocols.”
Regardless of the outcry, several major crypto entities took action to conform using the Treasury’s sanctions. For just one, Circle, the issuer from the USDC stablecoin, has frozen over USDC 4m associated with 81 addresses sanctioned through the OFAC.
Web3 development platforms Alchemy and Infura have apparently also blacklisted the sanctioned Tornado Cash addresses, while programming depository vault GitHub has removed the origin code for Tornado Cash while suspending the account of their founder Roman Semenov.
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Find out more:
– Tornado Cash Ban Blows Winds of Both Division and Unity Through Crypto Community
– Mixers Receiving ‘More Cryptocurrency than ever before in 2022’ – Chainalysis
– As New Crypto Sanction Screening Tool Launched, Tornado Cash Keeps Mixing and FBI Chimes In
– United kingdom Crime Agency Requires Crypto Mixing Regulation Among Clampdown On Crooks
