Treasury Dept. blacklists crypto platform used in money laundering.
Summary
The crackdown was the U.S. government’s latest effort to rein in the crypto industry, as lawmakers and regulators grow increasingly concerned over the volatility of virtual currencies and their role in facilitating hacking and other crimes. Calling the platform a “threat to U.S. national security,” the Treasury Department placed Tornado Cash on a blacklist of entities, making it illegal for Americans to send or receive money using the service. “Despite public assurances otherwise, Tornado Cash has repeatedly failed to impose effective controls designed to stop it from laundering funds for malicious cyber actors,” Brian Nelson, the under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement. “Instead it is all Americans who may wish to use this automated tool in order to protect their own privacy while transacting online.” As the market for digital currencies has grown, the federal government has increasingly cracked down on crypto companies, which are lightly regulated. Tether, a stablecoin company, was fined last year by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for misstatements about its reserves, while the Justice Department brought insider-trading charges last month against a former employee of Coinbase, the largest U.S. crypto exchange.