A new court ruling has reversed the sanctions placed on crypto mixer Tornado Cash (TORN) by the US government. According to a recent filing by the New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, the previous decision to place sanctions on the digital assets tumbler has been lifted. “It is ordered and Adjudged […]
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A federal appeals court in Texas has overturned sanctions levied against Tornado Cash, a cryptocurrency mixing platform, determining that the Treasury Department acted beyond its lawful authority. Court Rebukes Treasury Department Overreach in Tornado Cash Case On Jan. 21, 2025, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals delivered its ruling, responding to a lawsuit filed by […]
Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of ETH to Alexey Pertsev, a developer of Tornado Cash, a crypto mixer once sanctioned by the US government. According to Etherscan data reported by crypto reporter Colin Wu, Buterin donated a total of 100 ETH to Pertsev on two occasions, helping him […]
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Many in the crypto industry have criticized US authorities for sanctioning Tornado Cash smart contract addresses and charging developers with money laundering.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has made a significant contribution toward a legal defense fund for Tornado Cash developers Roman Storm and Alexey Pertsev.
According to a Dec. 31 X post from the Juicebox project Free Pertsev and Storm, Buterin donated 50 Ether (ETH) — roughly $170,000 at the time of publication — to Storm’s and Pertsev’s legal aid.
Storm reported that the contribution was roughly 25% of the total $650,000 available to the Tornado Cash developer through JusticeDAO ahead of his trial.
CryptoQuant’s CEO Ki Young Ju dismissed the idea that private CoinJoin transactions are mostly used by hackers to launder stolen funds.
Private Bitcoin transactions — using a process called CoinJoin — has tripled since 2022 as a result of huge Bitcoin accumulators accelerating their purchases of Bitcoin, according to CryptoQuant.
These Bitcoin whale addresses are primarily linked to spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds, MicroStrategy and custodial wallets, according to CryptoQuant’s Ki Young Ju, who explained that whales “frequently use privacy transactions” to transfer their funds to new institutional investors in a Dec. 26 X post.
CoinJoin transactions pool inputs and outputs from several parties in a way that obfuscates who might own an unspent transaction output.
Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm has petitioned a judge to drop the criminal charges against him after an appeals court found the Treasury unlawfully sanctioned the crypto mixer.
Roman Storm, the co-founder of crypto mixing platform Tornado Cash, has told a United States federal judge that his criminal charges should be dropped after an appeals court found sanctions against the platform’s smart contracts were unlawful.
Storm said in a Dec. 18 motion in a Manhattan district court that an opinion last month from the Fifth Circuit Appeals Court on a separate case finding the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) exceeded its authority in sanctioning Tornado Cash’s smart contracts “makes clear that all three counts of the indictment are fatally and legally flawed.”
He argued the opinion “most obviously impacts” his charge of conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), a law central to the US sanctions apparatus, as the appeals court found the smart contracts “are not the ‘property’ of a foreign national or entity” meaning they “cannot be blocked” under the law.
The Stanford Blockchain Club, a prominent group at Stanford University, has voiced significant worries about the U.S. government’s legal pursuit of Tornado Cash developers, Roman Storm and Roman Semenov, using old-school federal money transmission laws. Legal Overreach? Stanford Group Critiques Tornado Cash Indictments In their in-depth analysis, “Tornado Cash and the Boundaries of Money Transmission,” […]
Coinbase’s legal chief has declared a historic win as the Fifth Circuit Court ruled Treasury’s Tornado Cash sanctions unlawful, a bullish moment for crypto privacy. A Historic Victory for Crypto Privacy and the Defense Of Liberty The Fifth Circuit Court has ruled that the U.S. Treasury’s sanctions against Tornado Cash smart contracts are unlawful, marking […]
Tornado Cash developers are facing criminal charges, and affected parties have civil lawsuits pending against the US Treasury over sanctioning the crypto mixer.
Many in the crypto industry are still reeling from an appellate court decision that the United States Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) overstepped in sanctioning certain smart contracts associated with the cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash.
On Nov. 26, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that OFAC “exceeded its statutory authority” when it sanctioned some of Tornado Cash’s immutable smart contracts in 2022. Though the ruling did not close the door on the Treasury Department’s case, the six plaintiffs backed by Coinbase could see a policy change starting in 2025 that could impact how the courts handle addresses associated with crypto mixers.
Bill Hughes, Consensys’ senior counsel and director of global regulatory matters, told Cointelegraph that OFAC still had a “lot of authority” to sanction entities connected to Tornado Cash. However, according to Hughes, the Nov. 26 judgment would likely have the case go back down to the lower courts and have lawyers refile motions for summary judgment, a process which could “take months.”
A U.S. appeals court has ruled that the Treasury Department’s sanctions against the crypto mixer Tornado Cash were unlawful and an overreach of authority. In 2022, The Office of Foreign Assets Control’s (OFAC) sanctioned Tornado Cash – which allows users to obfuscate and anonymize their crypto transactions on the Ethereum (ETH) network – under allegations […]
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