Rebound in the Tornado Cash case – It has now been several months since the protocol Tornado Cash is in the sights of US regulators. Indeed, the latter accuse the protocol of having facilitated the laundering of millions of dollars. Fortunately, some users, such as the Chief Legal Officer of Coinbasesupport Tornado Cash.
Tornado Cash in the sights of US regulators
Tornado Cash is a protocol that allows theanonymization of transactions on Ethereum. To do this, it uses a technique called mixing. This aims to mix the tokens of several users in order to break the link between the sender and the receiver of the funds.
In practice, Tornado Cash is an open source protocol. Therefore, this one can be used by all kind of users whether they are malicious or not.
In August 2022, things got more complex for the protocol after US Treasury blacklisting.
Following this, 6 users have decided to file a complaint against the US administration. Indeed, the latter consider the procedure of the US Treasury as abusive and not in accordance with the law.
Quickly, the giant Coinbase sided with Tornado Cash in this case. In particular, he insisted on the need not to blame the tool for the uses made of it.
“When bandits are on the run on a highway, no one forbids access to this road. »
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Plaintiffs make their case
The latter do not intend to change their minds in the face of the American administration. Thus, on May 24, they filed a document in which they present four arguments to support their request.
This was later shared by Paul GrewalCoinbase’s chief legal officer on Twitter.
The first argument concerns the Treasury’s attempt to classify Tornado Cash as a ” nationto justify his action.
The plaintiffs point out that the Treasury has defined Tornado Cash as encompassing all holders of TORN tokens. It doesn’t matter whether or not they combined their efforts for a common goal. This definition, they say, prevents Tornado Cash from being classified as an unincorporated associationaccording to the Treasury’s own tests.
The second argument refers to Tornado Cash’s open-source smart contracts. According to the complainants, these cannot be considered property because a property must be something that comes under possession.
The plaintiffs’ third argument is that Tornado Cash has no “ interest for these contracts. Therefore, the Treasury does not have the power to sanction it.
“No one – not the founders, not the developers, and certainly not the people who happen to have TORNs in their wallets – has ownership of these immutable smart contracts.»
Finally, the last argument states that even if the Treasury has the power to do so, the sanctionby Tornado Cashviolates the First Amendment.
“Tornado Cash’s penalty unconstitutionally fetters freedom of speech under the First Amendment. »
On his side,the Tornado Cash protocol recently had to deal with an attack that targeted its governance. Fortunately, the hacker has since changed his mind.
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