The federal appeals court ruled against the US Treasury Department\u2019s sanctions on Tornado Cash in a Court of Appeals in New Orleans on Tuesday, Nov. 26.<\/p>\n
The three-judge panel determined that the Treasury overstepped its legal authority by sanctioning the software itself rather than specific individuals or entities.<\/p>\n
The court found that the Tornado Cash software\u2019s code cannot be classified as \u201cproperty\u201d that can be sanctioned. Coinbase supported the legal challenge, arguing against the blanket blocking of open-source technology.<\/p>\n
Circuit Judge Don Willett said the US government\u2019s concerns about foreign actors laundering funds through the crypto mixer are \u201cundeniably legitimate.\u201d However, federal law only gives the Treasury Department the authority to take action against property, reported<\/a> Bloomberg.<\/p>\n \u201cPerhaps Congress will update (the law), enacted during the Carter Administration, to target modern technologies like crypto-mixing software,\u201d said Willett before adding:<\/p>\n \u201cUntil then, we hold that Tornado Cash\u2019s immutable smart contracts are not the \u2018property\u2019 of a foreign national or entity, meaning they cannot be blocked.\u201d<\/p>\n Department of the Treasury\u2019s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) originally sanctioned<\/a> Tornado Cash in 2022, claiming it was used to launder over $7 billion in crypto, including $455 million by hacking groups associated with North Korea.<\/p>\n It is \u201cincredible the degree to which crypto is killing it in federal courts,\u201d exclaimed<\/a> Uniswap founder Hayden Adams.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Coinbase chief legal officer Paul Grewal said \u201cprivacy wins\u201d before adding that this is \u201ca historic win for crypto and all who cares about defending liberty.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThese smart contracts must now be removed from the sanctions list, and US persons will once again be allowed to use this privacy-protecting protocol. Put another way, the government\u2019s overreach will not stand.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo one wants criminals to use crypto protocols, but blocking open source technology entirely because a small portion of users are bad actors is not what Congress authorized,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Privacy wins. Today the Fifth Circuit held that @USTreasury<\/a>\u2019s sanctions against Tornado Cash smart contracts are unlawful. This is a historic win for crypto and all who cares about defending liberty. @coinbase<\/a> is proud to have helped lead this important challenge. 1\/6<\/p>\n \u2014 paulgrewal.eth (@iampaulgrewal) November 26, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n\n The Tornado Cash native token TORN spiked more than 850% on the verdict, skyrocketing from $3.60 to top out at $35 in early trading in Asia.<\/p>\n TORN has since retreated to around $18 at the time of writing, which is still up more than 400% over the past 24 hours.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, the crypto mixer token remains down 96% from its February 2021 all-time high of $436, according to Coingecko.<\/p>\n Tornado Cash $TORN<\/a> jumped as much as 700% after US court rules sanctions placed against Tornado Cash crypto mixer were unlawful. pic.twitter.com\/yLxPMAomjX<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 CoinGecko (@coingecko) November 27, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n\n The post TORN Surges 400% as Court Rules Against US Treasury Sanctions on Tornado Cash<\/a> appeared first on CryptoPotato<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The federal appeals court ruled against the US Treasury Department\u2019s sanctions on Tornado Cash in a Court of Appeals in New Orleans on Tuesday, Nov. 26. The three-judge panel determined that the Treasury overstepped its legal authority by sanctioning the software itself rather than specific individuals or entities. The court found that the Tornado Cash […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":23892,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-discovery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23891"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}TORN Price Surges<\/h2>\n