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Looking at the instances happening around the crypto space are enough to create skepticism regarding the intentions of the government. Why’s that? Well, the list is long, some are worth mentioning though. Take the Tornado Cash sanction for instance. The Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) sanctioned crypto mixer Tornado Cash, alleging for laundering the crypto assets.
According to OFAC, Tornado Cash is responsible for laundering crypto assets worth staggering 7 billion USD. Out of this, a significant amount of 455 million USD belongs to the infamous hacking group of North Korea—the Lazarus Group.
In August, 2022, Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) of the US Department of Treasury imposed several sanctions of the popular decentralized mixer protocol Tornado Cash. The mixer along with 45 Ethereum wallet addresses alleged to be associated with the protocol, was put in Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list.
Considering the allegations of OFAC against Tornado Cash to be true, the actions seem legitimate. However, a portion of the crypto community didn’t take this lightly. A group of six people filed a lawsuit against the United States Treasury Department. The suit was filed in federal court in the Western District of Texas.
Industry experts believe sanctioning Tornado Cash did not turn down the mixing activities. CEO of leading US crypto exchange Coinbase, Brian Armstrong said the Treasury took the issue too far. It should have taken actions against the responsible specific individuals, rather it went to take down the whole privacy oriented technology.
Meanwhile, on September 8th, 2022, Coinbase announced financial aid to the lawsuit filed by six plaintiffs. Their arguments are in favor of privacy. For instance, one among these people donated anonymous funds to Ukraine using the mixer. When it comes to the sensitive transactions requiring privacy and anonymity, mixers act as crucial technology.
These plaintiffs also include employees from Coinbase and also a former engineer from Amazon. Now with the backing of leading crypto exchanges to the actions against OFAC, the issue would catch more eyeballs whose result is expected to affect many entities and individuals.
Andrew is a blockchain developer who developed his interest in cryptocurrencies while pursuing his post-graduation major in blockchain development. He is a keen observer of details and shares his passion for writing, along with coding. His backend knowledge about blockchain helps him give a unique perspective to his writing skills, and a reliable craft at explaining the concepts such as blockchain programming, languages and token minting. He also frequently shares technical details and performance indicators of ICOs and IDOs.
