The most popular cryptocurrency service Tornado Cash fell under U.S. sanctions for money laundering - blocked more than $400,000,000

By: Maksim Panasovskiy | 10.08.2022, 16:00

The U.S. Treasury Department has imposed sanctions on the most popular cryptocurrency mixer, calling it a threat to national security.

What we know

We are talking about the service Tornado Cash. It has been listed by the Office of Foreign Assets Control. All property of Tornado Cash has been blocked and customers of the service are facing criminal prosecution. We are talking about users from the United States.

The U.S. Treasury Department said that Tornado Cash refused to introduce measures to prevent money laundering, despite public statements to do so. In addition to the cryptocurrency service, 39 Ethereum addresses and 6 USDC addresses associated with Tornado Cash, were blacklisted. The total value of the blocked assets is $437 000 000.

Recall that Tornado Cash allows anonymous transfers of funds on Ethereum. Decentralized site receives cryptocurrency from different users, mixes it in a common pool and transfers to another address. The commission is 0.3%.

Source: U.S. Department of Treasury