Crypto Mixer Tornado Cash Still Going Strong on Ethereum Despite US Treasury Sanctions: Arkham Intelligence

Blockchain analysis firm Arkham Intelligence says that crypto mixing platform Tornado Cash has recovered after sanctions imposed on the service by the US government over a year ago and the arrest of its key figures.

Arkham Intelligence says that Tornado Cash is still the largest crypto mixer on Ethereum (ETH) and that “$77.35 million in assets flowed through its contracts on Ethereum Mainnet in the past 30 days.”

The Tornado Cash crypto-mixing service assists in anonymizing 10 crypto assets.

Arkham Intelligence says that the total value locked (TVL) on Tornado Cash is currently a little over a quarter of the figure recorded at the crypto mixing service’s peak.

“The most mixed asset is native ETH on Ethereum Mainnet – at its peak in July 2021, Tornado Cash held over $700 million of ETH in its pool contracts.

Tornado’s assets dropped by more than 60% after it was sanctioned by the US Treasury, and transfer volume fell dramatically.

But TVL and transfer volume later recovered somewhat, despite the arrest of 2/3 of Tornado’s founders.

Tornado TVL currently stands at approximately 118,300 ETH ($187.9 million).”

In August, the co-founders of Tornado Cash, Roman Storm and Roman Semenov, were charged with operating the crypto-mixing service and laundering over $1 billion in criminal proceeds. While Storm was arrested and released on bail weeks ago, Semenov is still at large.

A developer of the crypto-anonymizing service, Alexey Pertsev, was arrested in August of 2023 in the Netherlands and held without trial until April of this year.

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