2022-08-15 06:24:49
"Tornado Cash added to US sanctions list - $437m of assets blocked.
What is OFAC, what are sanctions, and what does this mean for DeFi
OFAC = Office of Foreign Assets Control
They administer and enforce sanctions against high profile individuals including major international terrorists, drug trafficking kingpins, and the financial/political elite of certain countries deemed hostile to American interests.
OFAC ensures that Americans cannot legally do business with Cuba, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, etc without special government approval.
OFAC’s maintains a List of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN List).
On August 8, 2022 Tornado Cash and all the Ethereum wallet addresses associated with Tornado Cash and its smart contracts were added to OFAC’s SDN List.
All of Tornado Cash is blocked (can't be used by US persons), including their Gitcoin grants wallet. We scraped the wallet info from Etherscan - it is all of their addresses totaling $437m of stablecoins, ETH and WBTC.
It is illegal for *any* US ‘person’ to engage in trade, economic transactions, or “other dealings” with any person, company, or country on the SDN List. This now includes using Tornado Cash.
A US person is any citizen, resident, or company in the US.
Fines, civil, and criminal penalties can exceed Several Million Dollars. The maximum civil penalty for a ‘non-egregious case’ is $330,947.
Jail time for violations is a maximum of 30 years.
"Other dealings" is quite broad.
Government guidance states it could include “technical transactions such as downloading a software patch from a sanctioned entity”.
At this point it is probably illegal for US persons to visit the Tornado website.
Blocking immediately imposes an across-the-board prohibition against transfers or dealings of any kind with regard to the Tornado Cash property.
For WBTC, USDC, USDT we expect the issuers to take all technical steps to prevent anyone from moving or redeeming these assets.
What does this mean for Ethereum miners and stakers who are US persons? There's no legal precedent we're aware of and we're not lawyers but it doesn't look good.
It seems possible that breach of OFAC sanctions would occur if a miner or validator produces (or validates) an Ethereum block which contains a transaction including one of the Ethereum addresses on the SDN list.
However, how it'll be enforced is unclear.
Speculation: Ethereum client software might be updated with an opt-in patch allowing miners/validators to ignore tainted mempool transactions to avoid breaching sanctions. Transaction censorship isn't popular but we could see this being done in house by large US miners / stakers.
It may be a risk for any US based fund invested in Ethereum proof of stake as voting for blocks containing the illegal transactions could be an illegal activity. We expect either technical countermeasures (voluntary censorship) or moving business outside US jurisdiction.
CEX will be expected to use their Chainanalysis software to block and report all customer transactions which are in breach of sanctions. This means anyone who withdraws from Tornado Cash and tries to withdraw via a US-linked CEX.
To summarize
the US is willing to use its highest level of economic sanctions usually reserved for foreign powers and extremely dangerous people against a privacy product in crypto
if you are a US person, any interaction with Tornado Cash is probably illegal - including Gitcoin donations, working for the project, running or downloading its software, visiting its website, and depositing/withdrawing from smart contracts.
all assets in Tornado as of August 8th are tainted. It is likely that the tokens will be withdrawn from TC anyway and dumped into liquidity pools. Liquidity Providers will be left holding the bag.
US persons running Ethereum mining or staking operations are possibly at legal risk - these businesses may self-censor transactions or move offshore
DeFi protocols beyond DEX which interact with Tornado’d funds may be at legal risk, as may be their (US based) staff"
401 viewsedited 03:24
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