Tornado Cash mixing service is now blacklisted in US

[bbc.reporter]

On Tether, this is an admirable act from them, however, this is risky for the cryptospace because the US treasury department might be given a reason to sanction them before law enforcement instruction can be given. This is only another speculation but it might presently be safer to hold another type of stablecoin or only hold bitcoin.



Tether Holds Firm on Decision Not To Freeze Tornado Cash Addresses, Awaits Law Enforcement Instruction

Tether works closely with law enforcement worldwide to assist in investigations, including freezing addresses. We are in almost daily contact with key law enforcement officers and pride ourselves on the timeliness with which we respond to their requests. When Tether receives an applicable/legitimate request from a verified law enforcement agent to freeze a privately held wallet, the Company complies with the freeze (we do not freeze wallets of exchanges/services).

Source https://tether.to/en/tether-holds-firm-on-decision-not-to-freeze-tornado-cash-addresses-awaits-law-enforcement-instruction/

[bbc.reporter]

According to this Dune analytics dashboard page by a user called @phabc, Tether has banned 716 addreses already with $420 million of USDT held by the addresses in total. Circle has banned 82 addresses with $4 million held in total.

We can use this information if there are updates on Tether and if Paolo will wait for instruction from the government concerning funds that came from Tornado Cash.

https://dune.com/phabc

[Dave1]

@bitmover - there is a big development, as the US government has removed it's sanctions against Tornado Cash.



Here is the official document: https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0057

[hugeblack]

@bitmover - there is a big development, as the US government has removed it's sanctions against Tornado Cash.

An unexpected move . Does this mean that the use of Tornado Cash is now permitted, or are there no longer any economic penalties for the service's developers?

We remain deeply concerned about the significant state-sponsored hacking and money laundering campaign aimed at stealing, acquiring, and deploying digital assets for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the Kim regime. 
>
>
. persons should exercise caution before engaging in transactions that present such risks.

This text indicates respect for privacy despite all the accusations related to Tornado Cash.

[Ziskinberg]

This is actually good news, because most of the time, mixers are seen as something bad, like an evil platform used to facilitate money laundering. But maybe this could be a positive step for the government to understand that mixers are necessary for privacy. And if they can find a way to regulate it to prevent money laundering, then hopefully it will give mixers a proper industry to grow in.

[TravelMug]

This is actually good news, because most of the time, mixers are seen as something bad, like an evil platform used to facilitate money laundering. But maybe this could be a positive step for the government to understand that mixers are necessary for privacy. And if they can find a way to regulate it to prevent money laundering, then hopefully it will give mixers a proper industry to grow in.

Yes, it's really good to hear that they have uplift and no longer blacklisted Tornado Cash. And most likely it is also the result of Trump administration being "friendly" with crypto projects.

Not sure about the personality behind the project though, they could still face sanctions and prosecution.

Monitoring though their official X account: https://x.com/TornadoCash to see if there will be some kind of updates.

[fillippone]

This is indeed an excellent news.
The Trump administration made a U-turn toward legal aggression in the crypto universe (companies, protocols, practices and so on).
Hopefully, privacy rights will be respected at the same level in the US and in the rest of the self-proclaimed democratic world.

[TryNinja]

For the mixer policy to be reversed, the legal environment would have to improve a lot. I think that one of these would have to happen:
-snip-

It'll take at least a year before we have a good idea of what the new administration will really be like, but my expectation is that they will only be ~10% better than the Biden administration in this area. I would be surprised if they dropped the case against the Tornado Cash devs, for example.

-snip-

What now, theymos?

[NotATether]

Bye bye Operation Chokepoint 2.0 🤪

An unexpected move . Does this mean that the use of Tornado Cash is now permitted, or are there no longer any economic penalties for the service's developers?

The first one only. (I expect them to throw out the case against the developers sooner or later.)

We remain deeply concerned about the significant state-sponsored hacking and money laundering campaign aimed at stealing, acquiring, and deploying digital assets for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the Kim regime.  
>
>
. persons should exercise caution before engaging in transactions that present such risks.

If they want to effectively address money laundering concerns, then they should fine financial companies that get financially breached by hackers for failing to secure their software.

Then watch as all their use of brittle programming languages, their libraries and dependencies disappear. You're going to have all these services as hardened as Exch in just a few months if FinCEN issues this regulation nationwide.

[bitmover]

This is indeed an excellent news.
The Trump administration made a U-turn toward legal aggression in the crypto universe (companies, protocols, practices and so on).
Hopefully, privacy rights will be respected at the same level in the US and in the rest of the self-proclaimed democratic world.

I agree  this is amazing news.

USA may serve as an example  for many western countries to follow.

While embracing crypto industry,  much money will flow to the USA. Other countries may decide to also make crypto regulations which would favor the industry

[fillippone]

I read news about the Tornado Cash protocol being reactivated on an Ethereum Testnet following the lift of the band:

Developer ports Tornado Cash to MegaETH testnet as Treasury Department lifts sanctions against main protocol

• A developer known as Gunboats ported Ethereum-based mixer Tornado Cash to the recently-launched testnet of MegaETH, which claims a capacity of 20,000 transactions per second.
  
• The U.S. Treasury Department recently removed Tornado Cash and several associated digital wallet addresses from the OFAC specially designated nationals (SDN) sanctions list.

I am not a shit-coiner, so I don't know what the MegaETH testnet is, but hopefully, one day, the protocol will be live on the Mainnet again.