Circle, the issuer of USD Coin (USDC), the second-largest stablecoin by market capitalization, has announced that it has frozen USDC wallets owned by Tornado Cash.
Cryptocurrency that allows confidential transactions and is often named after thefts. Tornado Cash‘of, Recently by the US Department of the Treasury in money laundering used claimed. Following this statement from the Ministry US Secretary of State Anthony Blinkena North Korean version of Tornado Cash It’s a hacker group suggested.
Following the developments, carrying out its activities within the scope of the US Treasury Department, Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), August 9 believed to have laundered money through Tornado, together with Tornado Cash. 40 Ethereum your address too sanctions list reported that he received it.
After these developments, the US-based Circle company also made a move to support these sanctions. Active since 2013 end-to-end encrypted payment technology The company offering Tornado Cash in a number of wallets USDC announced that they had frozen their assets. Least 75 thousand dollars This freeze, which is known to cover USDC, is also supported by Tornado Cash. the USDC pool is also stated to be included.
The important parts of the statement made by Circle are as follows:
Circle is a regulated company and will comply with sanctions requirements. At this point, we have addressed the sanctions and blocked the designated addresses associated with OFAC’s designation of Tornado Cash.
It is one of the facts that the crypto community is familiar with that stolen crypto assets are “laundered” on Tornado Cash after many Ethereum-based hacking attacks. These decisions, ethereum mixer It appears to have been implemented to intercept the Tornado, which is named However, this is the transaction made to USDC wallets belonging to Tornado Cash. not first aid. A consortium formed by Circle and Coinbase in July 2020 $100,000 USDC Another Tornado Cash found had frozen his wallet.
Besides these developments, it seems that Tornado Cash’s official website is down. Also owned by Tornado github It is known that its page has been closed since the OFAC announcement.