Judge to Treasury: Hands Off That Crypto Mixer, Partner!

by

Well now, gather ‘round, folks, and let me spin you a yarn almost as wild as a Mississippi steamboat race. Seems the US Treasury’s mighty Office of Foreign Assets Control—OFAC to its friends and sometime adversaries—wanted to slap the old sanctions bowler back on a crypto mixing contraption called Tornado Cash. But a plainspoken Austin judge, Robert Pitman, done told ‘em: “Not so fast, boys. You can’t just re-sanction something after you’ve taken your boots off the neck of it.”

According to the April 28th ruling, OFAC’s pursuit was about as lawful as selling snake oil by moonlight, and now the agency is “permanently enjoined from enforcing” those pesky sanctions. (That’s legal-speak for “Go find yourselves another hornet’s nest to kick, gentlemen.”)

Turns out, some cantankerous Tornado Cash users led by Joseph Van Loon sued the Treasury right back, declaring OFAC’s move to add the platform’s smart contract addresses to their Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons list was “not in accordance with law.” Which, roughly translated, means: “You can’t just slap handcuffs on code and whistle Dixie.”

OFAC thought they were cracking down on Tornado Cash in August 2022, pointing their finger at the North Korean hacker outfit—the notorious Lazarus Group—for laundering crypto like it was a batch of dirty overalls down at the river. But, after much courtroom commotion and legal foot-stomping, the agency quietly slunk away in March 2025, crossing Tornado Cash off its blacklist and sighing, “Guess we’re done here.”

//s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2025-04/019684c6-da1e-7fcd-9c94-4f8c9d995f52″/>

Crypto body petitions White House over Tornado Cash

Meanwhile, in a twist worthy of a dime novel, the DeFi Education Fund took pen to paper on April 28, sending a strong-worded petition to the White House’s crypto wrangler-in-chief, David Sacks. Their demand? Drop those charges against Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm, who’s been accused of laundering more than a billion bucks through the protocol. (That’s more money than a riverboat gambler could lose in two lifetimes!) His trial’s still set for July, so stay tuned, partners.

The DeFi crew argues that blaming software developers for how folks use their code is “not only absurd in principle, but it sets a precedent that potentially chills all crypto development in these United States.” Translation: If you arrest the cook every time someone chokes on a ham biscuit, pretty soon no one’s going to open a diner. 🤠💸🚀

Secure your internet browsing with a NordVPN subscription. [Learn more](https://pollinations.ai/redirect/432264)

Read More

2025-04-30 07:28