For unwillingness to support US government sanctions, USDT cryptocurrency may be accused of collaborating with hackers

CTO of Tether (USDT) Paolo Ardoino said that the company will not support sanctions against cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash, which oblige cryptocurrency platforms to block addresses associated with the mixing service — refusal to comply with the bans could have negative consequences for Tether (USDT) in the United States.

As it became known, USDT’s capitalization increased after Circle, following the bans imposed by the US Treasury Department, blocked 44 USDC addresses associated with Tornado Cash. After that, investors transferred their savings from USDC to USDT in the amount of about $ 1.6 billion, which increased the capitalization of USDT.

Regarding the situation with Tornado Cash, the United States has imposed sanctions that prohibit American citizens and businesses from using Tornado Cash services. In addition, API and node infrastructure providers, which are considered the backbone of the Ethereum and Web3 ecosystems, are blocking remote procedure call (RPC) requests to Tornado Cash.

A few days after the sanctions were imposed, Tornado Cash developer Alexei Pertsev was detained in Amsterdam and immediately brought to court, charged with laundering stolen cryptocurrencies and collaborating with criminals. Many members of the cryptocurrency community, human rights activists, and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson defended the developer.