US Treasury faces lawsuit over Tornado Cash Ban via a non-profit organization called Coin Center. The lawsuit claims that the Treasury has extended its authority unlawfully to criminalize the use of Tornado Cash, an Ethereum coin-mixing tool. The Treasury also took things further by banning all the crypto addresses associated with Tornado Cash. Coin Center challenged this in its lawsuit and wants to take things to court.
What is Tornado Cash?
Tornado Cash is a completely decentralized, non-custodial, open-source cryptocurrency tumbler that functions on networks that are compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine. It provides a service that combines various cryptocurrency money with possibly traceable or “tainted” monies to obfuscate the origin of the funds. In EVM networks, where all transactions are by default public, this is a privacy mechanism that is employed.
The service got a bad reputation after hackers and criminals started to use it to hide the source of funds. However, the main idea behind Tornado Cash was to give users privacy and not let anyone track them. So, banning the platform is a denial of privacy to US citizens.
Treasury’s justification for banning Tornado Cash
Despite Tornado Cash being an open-source code, it was banned because criminals and hackers used it for wrongful activities. The writer of this code was also arrested, which got a lot of heat from the crypto masses. The ban was also not taken lightly because banning Tornado Cash denies privacy to crypto users who used it to hide their source of funds (not necessary for illegal use cases).
Coin Center says that the lawsuit will be very important for user privacy and even the survival of crypto. If the Treasury can ban an open-source code like Tornado Cash today, who knows, the same might happen with Bitcoin and Ethereum in the future. Therefore, the Treasury’s decision needs to be challenged. This is also not the first lawsuit against US Treasury; Coinbase also challenged them with a lawsuit last month regarding the ban on Tornado Cash.
Coin Center’s argument is that as users when we use Tornado Cash, it is to preserve our privacy. Nothing more or less!
What are your thoughts as the US Treasury faces a lawsuit over Tornado Cash Ban? And do you think Coin Center will win this lawsuit? Let us know in the comment below. And, if you found our content informative, share it with your family and friends.
Also Read: Survey shows almost 2 out of 3 people do not understand crypto.
