{"id":90800,"date":"2025-11-08T15:19:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T12:19:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=90800"},"modified":"2025-11-08T15:20:30","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T12:20:30","slug":"tornado-cash-tvl-reaches-historic-high-near-1-2-billion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/tornado-cash-tvl-reaches-historic-high-near-1-2-billion\/","title":{"rendered":"Tornado Cash TVL Reaches Historic High Near $1.2 Billion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The total volume of deposits in the cryptocurrency mixer <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/what-is-the-tornado-cash-mixer-and-why-was-it-sanctioned\">Tornado Cash<\/a> has reached a record $1.195 billion. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dlnews.com\/articles\/defi\/privacy-protocol-tornado-cash-volumes-hit-record-high\/\">DL News<\/a> attributed the surge in <span data-descr=\"total value locked\" class=\"old_tooltip\">TVL<\/span> of the protocol to an influx of funds linked to Richard Heart.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/img-b4f95a0be9c2ca27-8996072737212336.webp\" alt=\"image\" class=\"wp-image-269252\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/defillama.com\/protocol\/tornado-cash\">DefiLlama<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cIt seems several large whales are dumping everything into Tornado Cash,\u201d commented MetaMask security researcher Taylor Monahan to the publication.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>According to her analysis of on-chain data, over the past few days, more than 20 wallets linked to the PulseX exchange have transferred over 116,000 ETH to the mixer. At current prices, this amounts to approximately $399.5 million, or about a third of Tornado Cash&#8217;s TVL.<\/p>\n<p>According to the <span data-descr=\"U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission\" class=\"old_tooltip\">SEC<\/span>, Heart (whose real name is Richard James Schueler) controls PulseX, the PulseChain blockchain on which the platform operates, and the HEX project. In 2023, the regulator accused the entrepreneur <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/court-dismisses-sec-lawsuit-against-hex-founder\">of raising over $1 billion<\/a> through unregistered cryptocurrency offerings via these structures.<\/p>\n<p>In March 2025, a court <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/court-dismisses-sec-lawsuit-against-hex-founder\">found<\/a> part of the SEC&#8217;s arguments against Heart unproven. Later, the agency <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/hex-founder-claims-victory-over-sec\">decided<\/a> not to file a new lawsuit.<\/p>\n<p>The entrepreneur may have indirectly confirmed the large asset transfers discovered by experts with a post published on November 5 on the social network X.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">wallet watchers be like <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/H0nTvZHE5l\">pic.twitter.com\/H0nTvZHE5l<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Richard Heart (@RichardHeartWin) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RichardHeartWin\/status\/1986160477463069175?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 5, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cWallet watchers be like,\u201d he captioned the image.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What is the status of Tornado Cash&#8217;s legal cases?<\/h2>\n<p>In August 2022, the U.S. Treasury&#8217;s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed sanctions on Tornado Cash. According to authorities, since the service&#8217;s inception, over $7 billion has been laundered through it by criminals. Notably, the protocol was used by hackers from the North Korean group <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/lazarus-group-what-we-know-about-the-outfit-suspected-of-the-bybit-hack\">Lazarus<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>All company assets, user funds, and source code were blocked, and U.S. residents and citizens were prohibited from using the service.<\/p>\n<p>On January 21, 2025, a U.S. appellate court <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/court-overturns-sanctions-against-tornado-cash-mixer\">overturned the sanctions<\/a> due to \u201cexceeding authority\u201d by OFAC and sent the case to a district court in Texas for further proceedings. In April, a federal court <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/us-court-blocks-ofac-from-reinstating-sanctions-on-tornado-cash\">prohibited<\/a> the Office from renewing or imposing new restrictions on the crypto mixer.<\/p>\n<p>On May 14, 2024, a Dutch court <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/tornado-cash-developer-sentenced-to-64-months-for-money-laundering\">found<\/a> Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev guilty of laundering $1.2 billion through the mixer and sentenced him to 64 months in prison. From that moment, the developer was in custody. In July, he was <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/tornado-cash-developer-denied-bail\">denied<\/a> bail pending appeal.<\/p>\n<p>In February 2025, his detention was <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/tornado-cash-developer-alexey-pertsev-to-be-released-on-february-7\">suspended<\/a> under electronic monitoring conditions.<\/p>\n<p>On August 23, 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/fbi-arrests-tornado-cash-co-founder\">charged<\/a> two Tornado Cash co-founders, Roman Semenov and Roman Storm, with money laundering and sanctions violations. The latter was taken into custody.<\/p>\n<p>In August 2025, a jury <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/jury-returns-partial-guilty-verdict-for-tornado-cash-co-founder-crypto-industry-dismayed\">found Storm guilty<\/a> of conspiracy to conduct an unlicensed money transmission business. After the verdict, the Department of Justice announced the <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/us-revises-stance-on-defi-following-tornado-cash-case\">cessation of prosecution<\/a> on this charge for DeFi application developers.<\/p>\n<p>Since December 2024, Heart has been <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/hex-founder-richard-heart-placed-on-interpols-most-wanted-list\">subject to<\/a> an Interpol \u201cred notice\u201d at the request of Finnish authorities. He is wanted for intentional tax evasion and assault.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The total volume of deposits in the cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash has reached a record $1.195 billion. DL News attributed the surge in TVL of the protocol to an influx of funds linked to Richard Heart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":90801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"Tornado Cash deposits hit $1.195 billion, linked to Richard Heart's funds.","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1314],"class_list":["post-90800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-tornado-cash"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"234","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"Tornado Cash deposits hit $1.195 billion, linked to Richard Heart's funds.","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90800"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90802,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90800\/revisions\/90802"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}