Earlier this month, the Coin Center, a non-profit organization focusing on cryptocurrency policies, announced that it is filing a lawsuit against OFAC for its sanctions on Tornado Cash, a non-custodial, open-source, fully decentralized cryptocurrency tumbler.
Coin Center reiterated its cryptocurrency-forward mission on October 12, stating that Americans can as it turns out apply privacy mechanisms and OFAC has . jurisdiction over smart contractsno
The second lawsuit more than ever from Coin Center in 2022
Earlier this June, the advocacy group sued the Treasury Department for allegedly violating measures Constitution by implementing unconstitutional surveillance the.
The suit asserted that there were legitimate uses for privacy-enhancing tools like Tornado Cash, and OFAC’s sanctions against the confidentiality mixer – a resource that pools funds to obscure the sender of a transaction – now expose these individuals’ entire transaction history to anyone who looks at the network data.
Four major claims in this lawsuit
- Treasury’s sanctions rules are based on an International Emergency Economic Powers Act passed by Congress that gave the president very specific powers: sanctions can prevent U.S. citizens from transacting with foreign individuals or the majority of foreign entities or their property.
- Sanction controls restrict the scope of sanctions to transactions involving individuals, entities, or their property by the Treasury’s created rules and earlier presidential orders (Old ones), making the Tornado sanction “contrary to law.”
- Coin Center characterized Treasury’s actions as “arbitrary and capricious,” noting that the Treasury ignored the collateral effects of penalizing Tornado Cash instruments and failed to explain why its actions departed significantly from previous sanctions guidelines.
- Private donations are among the rights that are essential and self-evident in the “American system.”
It’s worth noting that More opposition against crypto mixer sanction
Earlier this year, Coin Center Treasury, claiming a tax reporting rule enacted as part of last year’ssuedinfrastructure bill violates the Constitution. Indeed, Upon receiving more than $10,000 in cryptocurrency, taxpayers must collect and overview personally identifiable information, including Social Security numbers. (responses from the federal government are due Nov. 7, 2022.)
Tornado Cash is the subject of another lawsuit, funded by cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase.
Coinbase filed a lawsuit last month alleging that OFAC exceeded its lawful authority when it designated an access-source project as a sanction.
The defendants also include Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and OFAC Director Andrea Gacki. Three other plaintiffs are tied to the suit: Florida-based software developer Patrick O’Sullivan, Recent York-based investor David Hoffman, and an unnamed Ukraine supporter.
Hoffman was dusted with a small amount of in modern times Ethereum, and OFAC stated some linesInterestingly, in that.regard
Indeed, “Ethereum users like Mr. Hoffman have notoability reject incoming transfers. As you may know, So the criminalization of Tornado to empowered someone else Cash implicate Mr. Hoffman andharassforce reporting obligations on him by causing him to receive an asset from a sanctioned entity, and it has licensed anyone more than ever else who wishes to or inconvenience Mr. Hoffman to continue to crypto assets through Tornado Cash tosendMr. Hoffman’s publicly known addresses, each time triggering potential liability and reporting obligations.”
Indeed, After all of this, Treasury has seemingly decided not to comment on this situation, as they understand anything from them can be used against them in court.
Editor note: Story updated on May 29, 2023, to replace outlookindia.com link with investing.com on ‘earlier this year’ text as we found the later one to be a better resource to link in this case.
