U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken warned that the administration would continue to pursue cryptocurrencies mixers suspected of laundering illicit funds.
The US Treasury imposed sanctions against Tornado Cash over allegations that it had washed $7 billion worth of cryptocurrencies since 2019. A press release stated that Tornado Cash had failed to implement effective controls to stop money laundering by criminals.
The platform is a neutral tool that runs autonomously and has a lot of concerns over hypocrisy and government overreach as a whole, with the community negatively responding to the sanctions.
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, a vice-writer and self-described cyber historian, summed up the argument by saying code is an expression of free speech and cannot be illegal, let alone sanctioned.
With that, thoughts turn to Secretary Blinken's statement and whether his words spell the end for cryptocurrencies mixers and personal freedoms in the U.S.
Is this the end of the cription mixers?
The U.S. Treasury said the platform had failed to implement controls to stop criminals from money laundering on the platform and was justifying sanctions against Tornado Cash. Know Your Customer KYC controls are not allowed by the mixers.
Roman Semenov, co-founder of Tornado Cash, stated that the platform is decentralized and autonomous, meaning it operates without third-party control. It has no corporate office or staff, and the user interface is lifted from an Ethereum Name Service domain.
The U.S. Treasury stated that cryptocurrencies mixers that assist criminals are a threat to U.S. national security. It will continue to monitor mixer activity with a view to clamping down on illicit financial risks.
Over five hundred responses were posted to Secretary Blinken's tweet, the majority of which condemned the actions of the Treasury.
One Twitter user called out the hypocrisy of sanctioning Tornado Cash when HSBC Bank fined $1.9 billion for money laundering. The incident happened ten years ago. This does not detract from lawmakers' efforts to treat banks favorably.
FatManTerra waded into the discussion by correcting Secretary Blinken on his designation of Lazarus and Tornado Cash. He stated that the hacking group had merely used the mixer platform.