Tornado Cash co-founder reports being kicked off Github as industry reacts to sanctions
Roman Semenov, one of the co-founders of Tornado Cash, has reported his account suspended at developer platform GitHub following the United States Treasury Department's to sanction the privacy protocol.
In a Monday tweet, Semenov said that despite not being individually named as a Specially Designated National, or SDN, of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control, he seemed to be facing repercussions from the government department alleging Tornado Cash laundered more than $7 billion worth of cryptocurrency. As SDNs, identified firms and individuals have their assets blocked and “U.S. persons are generally prohibited from dealing with them."
My @GitHub account was just suspended Is writing an open source code illegal now?
Being identified as an SDN would seemingly include any contact for business purposes which could extend to associations on Bithub. According to a joint statement from the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council and Office of Foreign Asset Control, prohibited transactions could be interpreted to include "downloading a software patch from a sanctioned entity."
Semenov called the move to suspend his account was “a bit illogical.” However, U.S. residents have been effectively barred from using the crypto mixer given its alleged failure “to impose effective controls designed to stop it from laundering funds for malicious cyber actors on a regular basis and without basic measures to address its risks,” according to Brian Nelson, Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.
Some pro-crypto advocates have pointed to Treasury’s actions against Tornado Cash as sanctioning a “neutral tool” in the crypto space rather than targeting individuals responsible for using it for illicit
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