U.S. Treasury Lifts Tornado Cash Sanctions Amid North Korea Money Laundering Probe
Mar 22, 2025
Financial Security / Cryptocurrency
The U.S. Treasury Department has announced that it's removing sanctions against Tornado Cash, a cryptocurrency mixer service that has been accused of aiding the North Korea-linked Lazarus Group to launder their ill-gotten proceeds. "Based on the Administration's review of the novel legal and policy issues raised by use of financial sanctions against financial and commercial activity occurring within evolving technology and legal environments, we have exercised our discretion to remove the economic sanctions against Tornado Cash," the Treasury said in a statement. In conjunction with the move, over 100 Ethereum (ETH) wallet addresses are also being removed from the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list. The department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) added Tornado Cash to its sanctions list in August 2022. It was estimated to have been used to launder more than $7.6 billion worth of virtual assets since its creation in 2019, the Treasury said a...
