Tornado Cash User Continues to Send ETH to Prominent Figures, Buterin Admits He Used the Mixer

cryptonews.com:

An anonymous user is continuing to send small amounts of ethereum (ETH) from a Tornado Cash wallet to the public addresses of prominent figures, ranging from celebrities to crypto CEOs, presumably as a way to protest against the US Treasury's decision to sanction the mixing service. Meanwhile, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has publicly admitted that he used Tornado Cash in the past, and for good causes. 

One day after the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed sanctions on crypto mixer Tornado Cash for its alleged role in money laundering operations, an anonymous user, or a group of users, started sending ETH 0.1 transactions from the mixer to prominent figures. 

Some of the more notable figures include American television host Jimmy Fallon, crypto exchange Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, basketball star Shaquille O'Neal, Mark Zuckerberg's sister Randi Zuckerberg, and a range of other well-known celebrities such as Logan Paul and Beeple. 

Etherscan transactions further show that almost all major crypto exchanges, including Binance, FTX, Kraken, OKX, Bitfinex, Gate.io, and Gemini, have received small amounts of ETH from Tornado Cash. Furthermore, even the Ethereum Foundation's treasury and the official Ukrainian crypto donation accounts have been included. 

As part of the sanctions, all Americans, as well as US-based companies, are barred from interacting with Tornado Cash. A failure to comply could lead to penalties of USD 50,000 to USD 10,000,000 in fines and 10 to 30 years imprisonment.

“U.S. persons and persons otherwise subject to OFAC jurisdiction, including firms that facilitate or engage in online commerce or process transactions using digital currency, are responsible for ensuring that they