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Tornado Cash token rises by 400% amid court decision on crypto mixer
After the US Court of Appeals overturned the US Treasury Department’s sanctions against Tornado Cash, its TORN token skyrocketed in price, showing an increase of almost 400%.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reportedly issued a decision that was a significant victory for supporters of decentralized technologies and privacy in the crypto world.
The court ruled that the immutable smart contracts underlying Tornado Cash are not property under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and therefore not subject to sanctions.
In 2022, the US Treasury Department, through the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), imposed sanctions on Tornado Cash. It accused the platform of money laundering, in particular for the Lazarus hacker group from North Korea.
However, the court ruled that the sanctions exceeded OFAC’s authority, as Tornado Cash’s smart contracts are autonomous codes that cannot be considered property of anyone.
The court’s decision stimulated a lively debate on the regulation of decentralized technologies. Critics fear that the lifting of sanctions could allow criminals to continue using such tools for illegal activities.
At the same time, privacy advocates emphasize that regulators should distinguish between the technologies themselves and their misuse.
On the back of this news, the Tornado Cash token — TORN — grew by 400%, reaching $ 17.63, which indicates investor optimism about the potential recovery of the platform.
Photo: BeInCrypto
Despite the court’s decision, the founders of Tornado Cash are still facing legal charges of facilitating money laundering, and the general discussion about the regulation of decentralized technologies continues.
As a reminder, a Dutch court found 31-year-old Tornado Cash developer Alexei Pertsev guilty of money laundering in the amount of $ 1.2 billion and sentenced him to five years in prison.
Earlier it was reported that the well-known North Korean hacker group Lazarus Group continues to carry out large-scale cyberattacks on cryptocurrency projects and networks. Experts estimate that the total amount of stolen digital assets exceeds $ 2 billion. The attackers used a complex scheme involving numerous mixers, such as Tornado Cash for Ethereum and ChipMixer for Bitcoin.