The US Ministry of Finance’s sanctions watchdog removed Tornado cash from its global blacklist on Friday.
The Crypto mixture tool has been accused of helping North Korea’s Lazarus Group – White Layout with stolen funds from its various hacks and thefts, and the US Finance Ministry’s Office of Foreign Asset control sanctioned it – which means no American person or anyone doing business with the United States could engage with it financially – several times. However, in November last year, a federal appeal court stated that ofac could not sanction Tornado Cash’s smart contracts because they were not “property” for any foreign citizen.
“We remain deeply concerned about the significant state-sponsored hacking and money laundering of money aimed at stealing, acquiring and inserting digital assets to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the Kim regime,” a press release from the US state department said.
Another release from OFAC lists over 100 Ethereum (ETH) addresses removed from the list of specially designated citizen, which is the record box that uses to maintain its black list.
Roman Storm, one of the co -founders of Tornado Cash, faces a criminal trial in July over his alleged role in developing the smart contracts and protocols. Another developer was indicted but has not yet been arrested. Following the fifth circuit’s decision in November, Storm’s lawyers filed a movement requesting that the Court re -consider its previous decision to refuse the dismissal of charges against him. This movement was beaten in February, when Judge Katherine Polk Failla from the southern district of New York (SDNY) argued that regardless of whether the Tornado contains were in themselves subject to sanctions “do not affect the sanctions that the defendant allegedly conspired to violate (those in the Lazarus group).”
Storm’s lawyer, Brian Klein from Waymaker LLP, Coindesk told him he was “very happy to see the sanctions against Tornado Cash removed.
“Now, SDNY -Presenters have to reconsider their unfortunate decision to charge our client and reject their case against him,” Klein added.
In a statement, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the United States has to “secure the digital asset industry from North Korea abuse and other illegal actors.”
In a Monday archiving referred to by the Treasury in Friday’s statement, the Treasury proposed the department that it might not go so far as to completely remove the sanctions.
“Leaving the designation of Tornado contains in its entirety could have significantly ‘disruptive consequences’ for national security and law enforcement,” the archiving said.
The cracked token burst 40% in the minutes following the Treasury’s statement.
Stephen Alpher and Cheyenne Ligon contributed reporting.
Update (March 21, 2025, 15:05 UTC): Adding additional details.
