Key dealers
- Ofac removed Tornado Cash from his sanction list but maintained sanctions against its founder.
- The removal derives from a court decision that Tornado Cash’s smart contract is not “property”.
The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has removed Tornado Cash, the prominent crypto mixing service, from its specially designed citizens (SDN), while maintaining the sanctions on one of its founders, Roman Semenov. The department’s department announced The removal in a press release on Friday.
In his latest updateOfac has removed several Ethereum (ETH) addresses linked to Tornado Cash from its SDN list, which effectively concludes US sanctions towards these addresses.
Tornado Cash’s website and smart contracts had been blacklisted of the Treasury Department since August 2022 Due to their alleged role in enabling extensive abuse of criminals for laundry assets.
The authorities claimed that criminal organizations, including the notorious Lazarus group, used the Ethereum-based mixing tool to wash over $ 7 billion in crypto assets from August 2022.
Following the 2022 Sanctions on Tornado Cash, users claimed users who claimed legitimate use of the tool and got their funds frozen, sued Finance Minister Janet Yellen, Ofac and Director Andrea Gacki. Coin base supported the mood.
On November 26, 2024 controlled In favor of the complainants, established that ofc exceeds their authority because Tornado Cash’s unchanging smart contract does not qualify as “property” under the Act on Economic Powers.
“We believe that Tornado Cash’s unchanging smart contracts (lines for the privacy rescue of software code) are not” property “for a foreign citizen or unit, which means that they cannot be blocked under IEPA and unanimously exceed their congress defined authority,” the court established, “according to the decision.
The Treasury Department announced its intention to remove the Tornado Contents from the SDN list on March 18, 2025, with the delisting completed on March 21, 2025.
Ofac also modified the term for Semenov, which remains sanctioned. His listing no longer has cyber-activated activities, but maintains the North Korea-related designation.
Despite the platform’s delisting, Tornado Cash founders Roman Storm and Roman Semenov continue to face legal challenges. They were accused in August 2023 for money laundering violations and sanctions related to the platform’s operations.
This is a developing story. We update when we learn more.
