Today, Coin Center shared that it is bracing itself to challenge the Tornado Cash ban in court by the U.S government. To the unfamiliar, Coin Center is a non-profit which focuses on solving issues related to the crypto policy.
On Monday, the advocacy group stated that the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) had crossed a boundary through its Tornado Cash ban last week. The Washington-based non-profit claims that OFAC has potentially violated constitutional rights.
The OFAC sanctioned and added crypto-mixing service Tornado Cash to its Specially Designated Nationals List. The organization alleges the criminal groups of laundering crypto currency worth $7 billion since its inception in 2019.
Jerry Birto, the executive director at Coin Centre, and Peter Van Valkenburgh noted in a blog post:
The OFAC has gone beyond its jurisdiction by adding Tornado Cash smart contract addresses to the SDN List. The officials believe the OFAC has breached constitutional rights to due process and free speech. This act by OFAC wasn’t adequate and didn’t reduce any impact on its action on innocent Americans.
Brito and Valkenburgh also revealed their intention to work with other digital rights advocates to ensure administrative relief. The officials are also planning to challenge the OFAC’s action in court. Tornado Cash is used to conceal transactions one’s transaction history on Ethereum. However, according to the U.S government, the app developers at many instances have failed to implement effective controls that would stop funds laundering.
Individuals who ever after this choose to interact with it, even if they are receiving money from an address which is a former app user will be going against the law. Coin Center believes the ban and its implications are totally unfair. Moreover, today acted in contrast to Tornado Cash blacklisting by imposing a ban on Blender.io. In may, the Fed sanctioned Blender.io which is another coin mixing app. Coin Center argues that this ban makes perfect sense since Blender.io “is a company or some like entity.”
Source: https://www.thecoinrepublic.com/2022/08/16/coin-center-to-challenge-tornado-cash-ban-by-u-s-government-in-court/