Authorities' sanctions against the cryptocurrency mixer have prompted protests from members of the blockchain community. The fact is that U.S. Treasury Department officials have accused Tornado Cash on its official website of using the tool to launder the equivalent of $7 billion.

Of course, it was not the platform's developers who did this, but its users. So it turns out that the creators of a decentralized platform based on a smart contract must somehow be responsible for the actions of completely different people.


Shortly after the Amsterdam event, developer Alex Pertsev, who also had a hand in the development of the mixer, was arrested. A protest was eventually held against this, with protesters repeating that writing open source code is not a crime.

Protest in Amsterdam against the arrest of Tornado Cash developer Alex Pertsev

Representatives of the cryptocurrency community argued that according to this logic bankers should be arrested for financial crimes of their own clients. Well, while gun manufacturers should be held accountable for mass shootings or similar incidents.

The situation has now been brought to the attention of Congressman Tom Emmer. He sees privacy as normal and the blocking of the cryptocurrency mixer itself raises a number of questions for him.

News on Tornado Cash

Emmer has published an open letter to US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. In it, he suggested that blocking software based on a smart contract contradicts the precedent of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Agency (FinCEN). That is to say, such sanctions are not inherently fair and lawful, the politician said.

Overall, Emmer asked Yellen why US authorities added the Tornado Cash platform to the sanctions list. After all, the platform is based on a decentralised smart contract, rather than a centralised company run by certain people.

The interface of the Tornado Cash platform, one of the most popular cryptomixers in the world

Here’s the relevant replica of the policy cited by Decrypt.

Sanctions on a neutral, decentralised, open-source technology raise several questions. They affect not only our national security, but also the right to privacy of every American citizen.


That is, again, the politician's emphasis is that the platform is a tool in the hands of different people, not a separate company. Accordingly, it is at the very least strange to block the system rather than those responsible for the crimes.


As noted by the Office of Foreign Assets Control, it has allegedly been used to launder $7 billion since the creation of the mixer in 2019. That said, analysts at research firm Elliptic note that most of this amount was conducted through the mixer for legitimate purposes. For example, Etherium creator Vitalik Buterin has previously stated that he used Tornado Cash before sending a certain amount in cryptocurrency as a donation to Ukraine.

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At the same time, a much smaller amount of money – approximately $1.5 billion – has been linked to laundering or illegal activities.


For the sake of argument, the authorities also pointed out that the site was used by hackers from the North Korean organisation Lazarus. Related people laundered more than $96 million worth of cryptocurrency, which was stolen as a result of the June 2022 Harmony Bridge hack.

Emmer agrees that Tornado Cash was used for illegal purposes. However, he adds that “the technology is neutral and the desire for privacy is perfectly fine”. In addition, the politician raised the topic of US citizens’ liability for receiving transactions from the mixer.


As a reminder, shortly after the platform was added to the sanctions list, an anonymous rich man took to sending out 0.1 ETH each to popular cryptocurrency addresses from Tornado Cash. In particular, Tron creator Justin Sun, host Jimmy Fallon, popular youtuber Logan Paul and other celebrities turned out to be the recipients. As a result, their addresses were blocked from interacting with popular cryptocurrency platforms like Aave.


Here’s Emmer’s quote.

Are US citizens receiving unsolicited funds from SDN-listed addresses innocent? What steps should people take in this situation to comply with sanctions obligations, while recognising the fact that within blockchain, people can receive funds unknowingly and without their own wishes?

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Emmer’s point to the Financial Crimes Agency’s 2019 precedent was particularly important. The latter confirms that “anonymisation software is not covered by the Bank Secrecy Act”, meaning the agency essentially had no power to do so. The official admits that “the Office of Foreign Assets Control is not bound by regulation by the financial crime agency”, the Treasury Department has a definition of cryptocurrency mixers that potentially contradicts its sanctions.


In the end, the official's position is clear: he believes that sanctions against the decentralised platform are not fair, as it is only a tool for the people. Accordingly, it is up to the latter to decide how to use it, and the developers should hardly be responsible for the actions of others. And according to analysts, Tornado Cash is predominantly used for legitimate purposes, not the other way around.