USDC-Maker Circle Moves To Ban Tornado Cash Addresses After US Treasury Blacklists the Crypto Mixer

By Daily Hodl Staff

USD Coin (USDC) issuer Circle has blacklisted wallet addresses associated with popular crypto-mixing service Tornado Cash.

On August 8th, the US government said it was banning Americans from using Tornado Cash, citing national security threats.

Following the sanction, a slew of wallet addresses linked to Tornado Cash were placed on the Office of Foreign Assets Control’s (OFAC) specially designated national (SDN) list.

Data from crypto data aggregator Dune Analytics shows that Circle has so far blacklisted 81 USDC addresses in cooperation with the sanctions.

In a Twitter thread, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said,

“Yesterday, US Treasury designated for sanctions ETH addresses associated with Tornado Cash. As a US-regulated FI subject to Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) requirements, Circle, together with our partner restricted the movement of USDC funds in these sanctioned addresses.

It is likely that nearly all responsible registered Virtual Asset Service Providers also took steps to block customers from transacting with these addresses, or face charges of willfully avoiding US sanctions compliance obligations, which can bring up to 30 years in prison.”

The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said it was sanctioning Tornado Cash on allegations that it has been used to launder more than $7 billion in digital assets, which include over $455 million by the North Korea-linked hacking group Lazarus Group and $96 million from the Harmony Bridge heist.

“Despite public assurances otherwise, Tornado Cash has repeatedly failed to impose effective controls designed to stop it from laundering funds for malicious cyber actors on a regular basis and without basic measures to address its risks. Treasury will continue to aggressively pursue actions against mixers that launder virtual currency for criminals and those who assist them.”

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