On August 8, OFAC added Tornado Cash’s website to the sanctions list, along with 39 Ethereum addresses and 6 USDC addresses linked to it.
In total, the blocked wallets hold $437 million in stablecoins, ETH and WBTC.
According to the agency, since Tornado Cash’s creation in 2019, criminals have laundered more than $7 billion using it. More than $455 million of them are linked to the Lazarus Group, a North Korean hacking collective.
Tornado Cash was also used to launder more than $96 million obtained by cybercriminals in the Harmony network hack in June 2022. In addition, through the service at least $7.8 million were stolen in the Nomad cross-chain protocol hack in early August.
The agency blocked all Tornado Cash property within the United States. Residents and citizens are prohibited from using the service.
Earlier in May, the U.S. Treasury added the cryptocurrency mixer Blender.io to the sanctions list, along with Bitcoin- and Ethereum-addresses linked to it. The agency says the service helped launder funds stolen by North Korean hackers and is believed to have been involved in ransomware attacks.
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