Blockchain Association Files Amicus Brief in Coin Center Lawsuit Against U.S. Treasury Over Tornado Cash Sanctions

The Blockchain Association has filed an amicus little successful an ongoing suit by deliberation vessel Coin Center against the Treasury Department and its sanctions watchdog, the Office of Foreign Asset Control.

In the suit, filed past October, Coin Center has alleged that the U.S. Treasury Department’s sweeping sanctions against crypto mixer Tornado Cash harmed Americans and their quality to transact privately utilizing the Ethereum network.

"It's captious to admit that Tornado Cash is simply a instrumentality – punishing the instrumentality itself simply due to the fact that it tin beryllium utilized by anyone, including atrocious actors, runs contrary to the values this state was founded upon,” Blockchain Association CEO Kristin Smith said successful a statement. “Blockchain Association stands with Coin Center, advocating for the liable and lawful usage of blockchain technology. Regulatory actions should lone beryllium targeted astatine atrocious actors who maltreatment this instrumentality for amerciable purposes."

The suit was the 2nd that the advocacy radical filed against the Treasury Department, and the 2nd suit against Treasury implicit its Tornado Cash sanctions.

OFAC sanctioned Tornado Cash past August, saying that North Korean hackers had laundered hundreds of millions of dollars’ worthy of crypto done the mixer since its launch. Approximately 20% of Tornado Cash’s wide transaction measurement was tied to 1 hack oregon another, the national authorities alleged.

The crypto manufacture has vigorously opposed the move, highlighting that OFAC does not usually authorisation bundle and that Tornado Cash does not person a cardinal operator.

There are morganatic uses for individuals to usage privacy-enhancing tools similar Tornado Cash, the suit claimed, and OFAC’s sanctions against the privateness mixer – which works by pooling funds to obfuscate the sender of immoderate fixed transaction – mean that these individuals present efficaciously exposure their full transaction past to anyone looking astatine the web data.

“An bid efficaciously requiring Defendants to decriminalize usage of the 20 Tornado Cash addresses would let Plaintiffs to behaviour their morganatic activities with immoderate measurement of anonymity, usage their preferred bundle instrumentality without fearfulness of penalties, and prosecute successful important expressive associations,” the suit said. “Judicial alleviation would besides service the nationalist involvement by averting harm to Tornado Cash users who are United States persons, to Ethereum arsenic a state and privateness enhancing technology, and to the important assemblage of the system that depends connected Ethereum.”