Crypto scored a victory against traditionalists (anti-crypto). The crypto community scored a massive win in a case with the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) over Tornado Cash sanctions. This victory not only led to an increase in prices for the Tornado Cash (TORN) token, which had been down since the sanctions, but also indicates the growing crypto adoption and its ability to challenge regulatory actions.
The Fifth Circuit Appeals Court led by a three-person judge panel on Tuesday ruled that the OFAC exceeded its authority by sanctioning Tornado Cash’s Immutable smart contracts. Although under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), OFAC can take action against property-related issues involving national security, economic threats, and more. However, the court stated that immutable smart contracts won’t be classified as “property” because no entity can modify or control them. The judges wrote,
We hold that Tornado Cash’s immutable smart contracts (the lines of privacy-enabling software code) are not the “property” of a foreign national or entity, meaning (1) they cannot be blocked under IEEPA, and (2) OFAC overstepped its congressionally defined authority
This decision by the Fifth Circuit Court reverses the lower court’s decision that supported the government’s sanction against the crypto mixer Tornado Cash. They sanctioned Tornado Cash in August 2022 under the guise that it helped launder more than $7 billion worth of crypto since its launch in 2019. Because of the sanctions, the usage of Tornado Cash dropped significantly after the sanctions took effect.
Roman Storm and Roman Semenov, the co-founders of Tornado Cash, were charged with Money laundering and violation of sanctions in August 2023. Alexey Pertsev, a developer of the crypto mixer, was sentenced to 64 months imprisonment in May 2024.
Tornado Cash Developer Roman Storm’s Trial Set to Proceed
This win has boosted the price of TORN, which has increased by 430% and is trading at $19.54 at press time. Its total volume has risen by 15908% in the last 24 hours to $11.20M and has a market capitalization of $100.27M. Furthermore, technical indicators like RSI have a value of 97.5, which denotes an overbought momentum, and MACD indicates a bullish trend. These indicators point towards further price rises for the coin.
