The US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has once again struck cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash, saying the smart contract has "materially contributed" to a "significant threat to the national security" of the United States.
OFAC said in a recent press release that the smart contracts through which Tornado Cash operates were used to "obfuscate the source and destination" of cryptocurrency, which North Korean hacker group Lazarus Group obtained as a result of the March 2022 heist.
The regulator has warned that new versions of Tornado Cash mixing service will also face sanctions. The warning also implies to the Tornado Cash Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO). OFAC emphasized that all US persons "cannot transact with Tornado Cash or deal in its property and interests in property, absent authorization from OFAC."
As iHodl reported in October, the US Treasury Department faced a lawsuit from a non-profit research crypto firm Coin Center. The firm claims that the US regulator violated the constitutional rights of Tornado Cash users who need it to protect their private associations.
Moreover, Coin Center also believes that the Treasury also failed to consider "important aspects of the problem, changed its position without explanation, and defied its own rules on the books."
