Circle freezes blacklisted Tornado Cash smart contract addresses
2022.08.09 17:53
Circle freezes blacklisted Tornado Cash smart contract addresses
According to crypto data aggregator Dune Analytics, on Monday, Circle, the issuer of the USD Coin stablecoin (USDC), froze over 75,000 USDC worth of funds linked to the 44 Tornado Cash addresses sanctioned by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control’s (OFAC) Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN) list. Tornado Cash is a decentralized application, or dApp, used to obfuscate the trail of previous cryptocurrency transactions on the Ethereum blockchain.
All U.S. persons and entities are prohibited from interacting with the virtual currency mixer’s USDC and Ethereum smart contract addresses on the SDN list. Penalties for willful noncompliance can range from fines of $50,000 to $10,000,000 and 10 to 30 years imprisonment. An estimated $437 million worth of assets, consisting of stablecoins, Ethereum, and wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC), are currently held in Tornado Cash’s smart contract addresses. As a result, issuers are expected to take steps to prevent the transaction or redemption of such assets.
