The world’s largest stablecoin issuer, according to a report published today by the Washington Post Tetherclaimed that it may not be complying with US Treasury Department sanctions against crypto transaction privacy mixer Tornado Cash.
The shared news is that Hong Kong-based Tether Tornado Cash He cites data from crypto intelligence firm Dune Analytics, which states that it has not blacklisted any accounts associated with it.
Tether’s Chief Technology Officer Paolo Ardoino clarified the issue, stating that Tether has not yet received requests from US authorities or law enforcement to freeze transactions with Tornado Cash.
Ardoino said Tether “normally complies with requests from US authorities” and US Department of the Treasury He added that he sees the sanctions “as part of a world-class compliance program.”
As Koinfinans.com reported to you, earlier this month, the US Treasury Department announced sanctions against Tornado Cash and announced that it has taken measures for criminals using the privacy-scrambling platform “to launder more than $7 billion in virtual currency since its creation in 2019.”
According to Elliptic’s blockchain data, $7 billion is the total amount of funds that have passed through the privacy tool, while only $1.5 billion includes illegally obtained money.
Different names from many countries, especially the USA, opposed the sanctions. The digital rights activist group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) said it was “deeply concerned”, while the nonprofit Coin Center said it was “investigating a court action”.
Jesse Powell, CEO of crypto exchange Kraken, was among those who called the sanctions “unconstitutional” last week.
Five days after the US announced sanctions against Tornado Cash, the Netherlands’ Financial Information and Investigation Service (FIOD) announced that it had arrested a “suspicious” Tornado Cash developer. Crypto fans and privacy advocates described the arrest as a declaration of war on the coders. Although the movement in question seems to be related to the USA, it has been announced that the arrest has nothing to do with these news.
Media reports denied whether the suspect was 29-year-old Alexey Pertsev, but said that if a developer wrote code “with the sole purpose of committing a crime”, the coding could be “punished”.