The integration follows the rise of coin mixers that draw heat from Western countries who have imposed sanctions on Russia to cripple its economy and penalize President Vladimir Putin. This includes high-ranking officials as well as individuals who have benefitted from his regime.

  • As per the official tweet, the move aims to block sanctioned addresses by the US financial intelligence and enforcement agency, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), from accessing the decentralized application.
  • OFAC lists sanctioned crypto wallets.
  • While financial privacy is paramount, Tornado Cash acknowledged that compliance should not be at the expense of financial privacy.
  • Roman Semenov, the founder of the protocol, clarified that the changes apply to the front-end only and not the smart contracts. The exec said the “smart contracts are immutable.”
  • A blockade at the front-end is a compromise after Semenov stated that it was technically impossible to impose sanctions against decentralized protocols.
  • Tornado cash, which is known for hiding the money trail, has been an Ethereum staple almost two years since its creation.
  • However, negative press surrounding the protocol are not new. It has been treated with suspicion from its inception.
  • To top that, its connection with the unpreceded $655 billion security breach on blockchain bridge Ronin Network wherein the exploiter reportedly moved the stolen Ether (ETH) stash through privacy protocol does not help its cause either.
  • Chainalysis co-founder Jonathan Levin recently testified before the US Senate, during which the exec revealed that the company did not find any substantial evidence of Russians evading sanctions using cryptocurrency.
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