The U.S. Department of the Treasury Announces Lifting of Sanctions on the Cryptocurrency Mixer Tornado Cash

The U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) Removes Tornado Cash-Related Addresses from Sanctions List

The U.S. Department of the Treasury announced on Friday that it has removed addresses related to the mixing protocol Tornado Cash from its sanctions list.

This move reverses the decision made by U.S. authorities in 2022 to first include Tornado Cash and its associated addresses on the sanctions list. According to previous reports by Zombit, Ethereum developer Joseph Van Loon and five other plaintiffs later sued the Treasury Department and related officials, claiming that OFAC’s sanctions against Tornado Cash constituted an overreach of authority. In November 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals ultimately ruled that the sanctioning action exceeded statutory authority.

In response to this news, the governance token of Tornado Cash, TORN, surged from $7.7 to around $15 in a short period, an increase of over 90%.