Court Ends Coin Center–U.S. Treasury Appeal Over Tornado Cash
The legal battle between crypto advocacy group Coin Center and the U.S. Treasury Department over the sanctioning of Tornado Cash has officially come to an end. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued a formal dismissal of the appeal this week, bringing a close to one of the most significant cases involving decentralized technology and federal regulatory authority.
Tornado Cash, a decentralized privacy protocol built on Ethereum, was blacklisted in 2022 by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) for allegedly enabling money laundering, including transactions tied to North Korea’s Lazarus Group. The sanctions sparked outrage in the crypto community, which argued that targeting a piece of open-source software rather than specific bad actors set a dangerous precedent. Coin Center filed a lawsuit soon after, claiming that OFAC had overstepped its legal authority by sanctioning autonomous code rather than individuals or entities.
Over the past two years, the legal debate expanded across multiple courtrooms, with different outcomes. A related case led to a ruling that smart contracts cannot be considered property under current sanction laws, a decision that weakened the legal foundation of OFAC’s actions. In March 2025, OFAC removed Tornado Cash from its sanctions list, further undermining the basis for continued litigation.
Recognizing that the primary issue was no longer active, both Coin Center and the Treasury Department filed a joint motion to dismiss the appeal. The Eleventh Circuit accepted the motion and vacated the lower court’s ruling, instructing the district court to dismiss the case in its entirety. This effectively shuts down the civil legal challenge and signals the end of a heated confrontation over how U.S. authorities interpret sanction laws in the context of blockchain technologies.
While the appeal is over, the broader implications for decentralized finance (DeFi) remain. The outcome may influence how regulators approach future actions involving autonomous or open-source software, especially when no identifiable operator is involved. It also raises questions about the reach of traditional financial enforcement tools in a world where decentralized tools operate globally, without central control.
Meanwhile, the Tornado Cash story is far from over in the criminal courts. The developers behind the protocol are still facing prosecution. Roman Storm is scheduled to go on trial in New York later this month, facing charges related to money laundering and sanctions violations. His co-founder, Roman Semenov, remains at large, and developer Alexey Pertsev has already been convicted in Europe.
For now, privacy advocates are viewing the case dismissal as a partial win for decentralization and code rights. However, the debate over privacy protocols and their potential misuse continues to evolve. Regulatory agencies are expected to refine their approach, possibly focusing more on front-end operators or custodial services than the underlying code.
The dismissal of the Coin Center–Treasury appeal is a turning point in crypto law, but it also underscores a larger issue: how to enforce financial regulations in an era where code, not companies, is increasingly at the center of innovation.
