US Treasury sanctions USDC and ETH addresses connected to Tornado Cash

cointelegraph.com:

The United States Treasury Department has added more than 40 cryptocurrency addresses allegedly connected to controversial mixer Tornado Cash to the Specially Designated Nationals list of the Office of Foreign Asset Control, or OFAC.

In a Monday announcement, OFAC effectively barred U.S. residents from using Tornado Cash and placed 44 USD Coin (USDC) and Ether (ETH) addresses connected to the mixer on its list of Specially Designated Nationals. The department alleged that individuals and groups had used the mixer to launder more than $7 billion worth of crypto since 2019, including the $455 million stolen by the North Korea-affiliated Lazarus Group. The protocol was also at the center of some recent hacks and exploits in decentralized finance, including a $375-million attack on Wormhole in February and a $100-million hack on Horizon Bridge in June. 

“Despite public assurances otherwise, Tornado Cash has repeatedly failed to impose effective controls designed to stop it from laundering funds for malicious cyber actors on a regular basis and without basic measures to address its risks,” said Brian Nelson, Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. “Treasury will continue to aggressively pursue actions against mixers that launder virtual currency for criminals and those who assist them.”

Today, Treasury sanctioned virtual currency mixer Tornado Cash, which has been used to launder more than $7 billion worth of virtual currency since its creation in 2019. Virtual currency mixers that assist criminals are a threat to U.S. national security. https://t.co/x8sCXsNzUv

The Treasury Department took similar steps against cryptocurrency mixer Blender.io in May. According to OFAC, the mixer allegedly