TRON founder gets blocked by Aave over Tornado Cash deposit

What’s new? Aave, a decentralized protocol, blocked TRON blockchain founder Justin Sun over a deposit from the Tornado Cash cryptocurrency mixer of 0,1 ETH received from an unknown user. Representatives of Curve.Finance, a DeFi protocol, under Sun’s Twitter post suggested sending the same funds to Aave’s founder Stani Kulechov “so that he can forward it to relevant authorities.” On August 8, US authorities put Tornado Cash on the sanctions list.

Send that 0.1 ETH to Stani so that he can forward it to relevant authorities 🤔

— Curve Finance (@CurveFinance) August" class="redactor-linkify-object">https://twitter.com/CurveFinance/status/1558400538... 13, 2022

More details about the situation. According to cybersecurity company PeckShield, after the US authorities banned Tornado Cash, an unknown person with the service sent 0,1 ETH each to more than 440 addresses. In addition to Sun, the head of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, Brian Armstrong, and NFT artist Mike Winkelmann, known under the pseudonym Beeple, received the asset. Similar amounts were sent to centralized crypto exchanges such as Binance and FTX.

Tornado Cash situation. Restrictions against the service were imposed by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), part of the Treasury Department. The agency noted that more than $7 billion has been laundered through Tornado Cash since 2019, including its use by the DPRK-based hacker group Lazarus Group.

Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, froze more than 75 000 coins associated with the sanctioned addresses after the restrictions were imposed. On August 10, the dYdX exchange blocked the addresses of users interacting with Tornado Cash. Also, the DeFi platform Oasis.app began blocking wallets with high sanctions risks, including those associated with the crypto mixer.

On August 12, the Dutch authorities arrested the alleged developer of Tornado Cash. He is suspected of involvement in money laundering and hiding financial information.

For more details on the experts’ opinions on the dangers of interacting with sanctioned services such as Tornado Cash, see GetBlock Magazine’s article.