On 8 August, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control banned Tornado Cash and all associated crypto addresses. Github, an internet hosting platform for open-source code development and software, has suspended some contributors to Tornado Cash commits.
Tornado Cash Github Contributors Suspended from Github, Blacklisted ERC20s Left to Liquidity Providers
Tornado cash has been a hot topic in the cryptocurrency world since Monday’s ban by the U.S government on the privacy-enhancing ethereum-mixing service. Although the U.S. Treasury Department’s watchdog OFAC didn’t disclose why Tornado Cash was banned, it is believed that it was because of the North Korean hacking group known as Lazarus Group.
My @GitHub account was just suspended
Is it illegal to write open-source code now?
— Roman Semenov (@semenov_roman_) August 8, 2022
Lazarus Group associates are alleged to have used Tornado Cash for mixing funds. On April 15, 2022, the official Tornado Cash Twitter account explained that it had blocked flagged ethereum addresses listed on the OFAC Specially Designated Nationals And Blocked Persons list (SDN). According to the project’s social media accounts, “Tornado cash uses [a] Chainalysis contract to prevent OFAC sanctioned addresses accessing the dapp.” The Tornado Cash Twitter account has added
Maintaining financial privacy is essential to preserving our freedom, however, it should not come at the cost of non-compliance.
Now reports reveal that some commits to the Tornado cash codebase on Github were deleted and their Github accounts suspended. Tornado Cash’s founder, Roman Semenov, explained that his Github account was suspended. “My Github account has been suspended. Semenov asked, “Is writing open source code now illegal?” According to a Twitter user dubbed “Bowtiediguana,” all the addresses OFAC associated with Tornado Cash hold roughly $437 million in stablecoins like USDC and USDT, alongside ETH and WBTC as well.
Circle just frozen 75,000 USDC belonging to unsuspecting Tornado users, as well as 149 USDC donated to the project. pic.twitter.com/GBS41FtZvB
— banteg (@bantg) August 8, 2022
Circle has blacklisted all US Dollar Coin (USDC), associated with the Tornado Cash platform. Bowtiediguana expects Tether and Bitgo, the custodian of WBTC, to do the same thing, as these ERC20 tokens can be frozen at the smart contract level. The defi educator also expects the ERC20 custodians like Bitgo to “suspend redemptions of the tainted WBTC, rendering those tokens worthless.” Bowtiediguana added:
Liquidity providers will likely end up as bagholders for blocked WBTC (and stablecoin) assets if they do not pull liquidity from DEX *immediately*.
Ethereum Advocate Says OFAC Ban Was Big Brother’s Attack on Crypto ‘
Another thing that happened was that a lot of crypto community members talked about the U.S government’s actions after the ban. “I’m sure the bad guys will stop using Tornado Cash because it’s ‘illegal,'” Shapeshift founder Erik Voorhees wrote. “Just as they don’t use illegal weaponry, smuggle illicit drugs, or illegally laundering money through any means they can find. Voorhees said that only law-abiding Americans were affected by the ban. Ryan Adams, an Ethereum proponent, called the ban an attack against crypto.
The outlawing of Tornado Cash and freezing of $USDC infuriates me.
It’s a battle between the state, and our financial freedom at the moment. This is only the beginning, I fear.
We must fight for our freedom!
— Aku (@AkuRypto) August 8, 2022
“Today, US-approved Ethereum addresses were associated with a privacy service called Tornado Cash. Circle immediately frozen the USDC from those accounts. GitHub banned Tornado contributors. Adams stated that if you were looking for the opening shot in big brother’s attack on crypto, this was it. Crypto proponents discussed other ideas like decentralizing Github in a censorship-resistant fashion and others talked about creating “new instances of the Tornado contract.”
This story contains tags
Attack, BitGo, Blocked ERC20s, Bowtiediguana, Circle, Codebase, Crypto, Cryptocurrency, defi educator, Digital Assets, Erik Voorhees, github, Github Suspensions, Hackers, Lazarus Group, Lazarus Group attack, Mixing Application, north korea, North Korea Lazarus Group, north korean hackers, OFAC, OFAC list, Ryan Adams, sdn list, Suspensions, Tether, Tornado cash, Tornado Cash ETH, Tornado Cash ETH addresses, Tornado Cash mixer, Tornado Cash USDC, treasury department, US Treasury, USDT, WBTC
What do you think about OFAC banning the ethereum mixing application Tornado Cash? Please comment below to let us know your thoughts on this topic.
Jamie Redman
Jamie Redman, the News Lead at Bitcoin.com News, is a Florida-based financial journalist. Redman has been an active member of the cryptocurrency community since 2011. Redman is passionate about Bitcoin, open-source codes, and decentralized applications. Since September 2015, Redman has written more than 5,700 articles for Bitcoin.com News about the disruptive protocols emerging today.
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