Experts assess the consequences of sanctions on the Tornado Cash mixer

US authorities regard cryptocurrency mixing services as potential threats and continue to tightly monitor their activities. reports The Block, citing representatives of the bitcoin industry.

According to them, the sanctions imposed the day before against Tornado Cash to the sanctions list demonstrate OFAC‘s seriousness in combating illicit activity on the crypto market.

“The United States will not tolerate excuses that mixers are neutral services. If such a service facilitates wrongdoing, sanctions by authorities are inevitable,” said David Carlisle, Elliptic’s vice president for policy and regulation.

He suggested that the Tornado Cash situation will affect the operations of many exchanges – they will have to conduct rigorous checks to avoid processing restricted transactions.

The Coin Center, a group promoting and defending industry interests, expressed concern about OFAC’s actions.

“This is not about banning the use of the financial system by a non-US citizen, but about banning every American from using a specific open-source software tool,” wrote Coin Center’s executive director Jerry Brito and director of research Peter Van Valkenburgh.

According to them, any American could potentially access funds related to Tornado Cash.

“Without the ability to reject a transaction due to the nature of the blockchain, you can commit a violation without any malicious intent,” they noted, adding that in such a case the mechanism for enforcing sanctions should be explained in detail.

Nansen analysts fear wide-ranging consequences for the crypto industry amid the potential for authorities to sanction part of the code. The situation is further compounded by the usual lag of government and regulators behind technological innovations.

“Privacy is important so you are not tracked by metadata or unfairly linked to North Korea-related activity simply because the government cannot identify the Tornado Cash code,” said former Ethereum Foundation employee Hudson Jameson.

Other participants in the crypto community, by contrast, believe that active resistance to authorities confirms the market’s rightful direction.

“Governments will always resist the rights to financial freedom and privacy. The reality is they can sanction Tornado Cash, but the smart contract will continue to live,” wrote Into the Ether host Eric Conner.

Earlier, OFAC added Tornado Cash to the sanctions list amid suspicions of laundering more than $7 billion.

​​Circle froze 75,000 USDC in sanctioned mixer wallets, and the service’s GitHub accounts were blocked.

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