The US Treasury Department has dropped cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash from its sanctions list, the agency said on March 21.
The removal follows a January ruling by a US appeals court, which said the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) cannot sanction Tornado’s smart contracts because they are not the property of any foreign national.
According to the January court ruling, “Tornado Cash’s immutable smart contracts (the lines of privacy-enabling software code) are not the ‘property’ of a foreign national or entity, meaning […] OFAC overstepped its congressionally defined authority.”
In a March 21 statement, the Treasury said OFAC removed several dozen Tornado-affiliated smart contract addresses on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain network from its sanctions list.
Tornado’s native token, Tornado Cash (TORN), is up around 60% on the news, according to data from