{"id":1137,"date":"2022-09-12T21:58:59","date_gmt":"2022-09-12T21:58:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grandpascrypto.com\/?p=1137"},"modified":"2023-01-09T16:19:07","modified_gmt":"2023-01-09T16:19:07","slug":"coinbase-funds-lawsuit-challenging-ofacs-sanctions-on-tornado-cash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grandpascrypto.com\/coinbase-funds-lawsuit-challenging-ofacs-sanctions-on-tornado-cash\/","title":{"rendered":"Coinbase Funds Lawsuit Challenging OFAC’s Sanctions on Tornado Cash"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

tl;dr Summary:<\/strong> Coinbase is sponsoring a lawsuit filed by six individuals challenging the U.S. Treasury Department’s sanctions against Tornado Cash smart contracts and requesting that the Court remove them from the U.S. sanctions list. According to the lawsuit, OFAC exceeded its authority granted by Congress and the President by punishing open source technology rather than sanctioning the criminal actors who used it.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coinbase, the largest U.S. crypto exchange by trading volume, recently came out in support of six individuals, including Coinbase workers, that got banned by the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in August.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On September 8th, Brian Armstrong, CEO and Cofounder of Coinbase, and Paul Grewal, Chief Legal Officer at Coinbase, shared two separate articles explaining this step taken by Coinbase to fund and support six individuals challenging the sanctions on Tornado Cash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tornado Cash and other mixing services obscure crypto transactions, making them anonymous. The Treasury Department claimed that North Korean hackers and other criminal actors used this business to launder more than $7 billion in digital currency over the last three years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brian<\/a> and Paul<\/a> argue that mixing services are used for legitimate privacy reasons such as keeping one’s crypto salary private, making anonymous donations, securing transactions, and ensuring the protection of personal assets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Sanctioning open source software is like permanently shutting down a highway because robbers used it to flee a crime scene,” says Brian. He adds, “It ends up punishing people who did nothing wrong and results in people having less privacy and security.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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8\/ Hopefully reason and justice will prevail, and we will find workable solutions to bring bad actors to justice together without broad overreach.<\/p>— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) September 8, 2022<\/a><\/blockquote>