Tornado Cash (Torn) scored a major victory over the United States government, as it has a blow to transcending encryption.
On April 29, 2025, the American provincial judge, Robert Petman (Western Province in Texas), has always issued a permanent judicial order against the Treasury to combat foreign assets (OFAC), as it prevented it from returning sanctions on the encryption mixer.
The ruler goes down to the bottom of the original Tornado Cash for OFAC, a specially specific citizen (SDN), who accused the money laundering protocol – including the Lazaros Group in North Korea.
Tornado Cash vs. OFAC
The court dismantled the cabinet case on several fronts. Judge Pittman has spent that the smart contracts of Tornado Cash are not “property” under American law, making them not eligible for penalties. This strengthened the decision of the previous fifth district, which has already weakened the position of the government.
OFAC tried to say that the issue was a discussion because it removed the hurricane money in March, such as Cryptomode I mentioned. However, the court did not buy it, and Petman realized the clear risk that the cabinet could simply restore the penalties at a later time, and closed it permanently.
Prosecutors (led by Joseph Van Lunon and his support for the Coinbase Legal team) successfully succeeded that the treatment of an open source of non -changed source as a penaltyable property has significantly exceeded OFAC. A month ago, in February, he was the main developer of Tornado Cash, Alexey Pertsev, Absolute From the Dutch prison, on the occasion of the end of the detention before the trial.
The torn price sees a modest gain after the court ruling
Huge effects. This referee is not just a victory over Tornado Cash-it is a major precedent for Defi and Web3 developers and open source developers. It casts a key in future attempts to regulate decentralized protocols with brute force and enhances the legal shield on public code bases.
The market reaction was, although caution. Torn, the original symbol of Tornado Cash, published a decent gain after the news erupted. According to Coingecko data, the privacy code is traded at $ 7.8, an increase of 6 % in the past 24 hours.
Optimism exists, but the broader Defi sector still absorbs the full range of what this legal victory means. The message is clear: Open source protocols are no longer a fair game for lazy organization anymore.
