TORN gains by 100% after U.S delists Tornado Cash from sanctions list – Meaning?

• U.S Treasury has delisted Tornado Cash from sanctions list, triggering 100% gains for TORN 
• Insiders hailed the update as a ‘win’ for privacy tech in crypto

On 21 March, the U.S Treasury delisted Tornado Cash, a cryptocurrency mixer that hides transaction trails and recipients, from its sanctions list. As expected, market insiders hailed the update as another regulatory win for privacy-focused tech. 

Reacting to the update, Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong said, 

“No one wants to see bad folks use crypto. But privacy is an important feature for many law abiding citizens, and you can’t sanction open source code (it’s a free speech issue). Glad to see this get fixed.”

Tornado Cash’s alleged North Korea links

In August 2022, the Biden Administration sanctioned Tornado Cash (TC) under the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). This, after reports that North Korean actors were using the platform to launder billions of dollars hacked from the crypto space. The founders and developers of Tornado Cash, including Alexey Pertsev and Roman Storm, were indicted too.

This, despite some industry figures calling for the prosecution of bad actors, rather than platform creators or developers. 

Worth noting, however, that a U.S court ruled last November that the OFAC overstepped its authority by sanctioning Tornado Cash. And yet, the platform remained blacklisted until yesterday. 

In a statement, U.S Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reiterated the same sentiment. He said,

“Securing the digital asset industry from abuse by North Korea and other illicit actors is essential to establishing U.S. leadership and ensuring that the American people can benefit from financial innovation and inclusion.”

Coinbase’s Armstrong added that he is ready to work with the government to combat the “0.1% of illicit activity in crypto,” as per American laws. 

Thanks to the latest update, Balaji Srinivasan, former Coinbase CTO, called for immediate pardons and restitution for Tornado Cash’s founders. 

“Privacy wins. Tornado Cash is legal. Now, Roman Storm and Alexey Pertsev should be immediately freed, pardoned, and reimbursed by the state for their invalid prosecution.”

For his part, Roman Storm hailed the delisting as a ‘victory’ for privacy technology and TORN, the native token of TC. In fact, TORN exploded by over 100% after the news and jumped from $8 to nearly $16. At the time of writing, most of these gains had been lost though.