{"id":100185,"date":"2024-11-20T17:24:34","date_gmt":"2024-11-20T21:24:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/?p=100185"},"modified":"2024-11-20T17:24:37","modified_gmt":"2024-11-20T21:24:37","slug":"coin-center-lawyers-say-tornado-cash-is-not-property","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/coin-center-lawyers-say-tornado-cash-is-not-property\/","title":{"rendered":"Coin Center Lawyers Say Tornado Cash is Not Property"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Coin Center is appealing a previous ruling by the United States district court for Northern Florida, which determined that Tornado Cash generates indirect advantages for foreign entities and individuals that qualify as a financial interest<\/a> subject to sanctions from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Coin
Coin Center Lawyers Say Tornado Cash is Not Property<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Jeffrey S. Hetzel, the legal counsel for Coin Center, stated to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals\r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n <\/g>\r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n <\/clipPath>\r\n <\/defs><\/svg><\/span><\/a>, “The most straightforward approach to resolving this case is to assert that there is no foreign property involved in the transactions of our plaintiffs.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The district court was required to eliminate the term “property” from the statute. Hetzel then proceeded with his argument:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cThe government, on appeal, says that the software published at the banned addresses is property, but the software is non-proprietary lines of code that no one on the planet can own, control, or alter in any way.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The United States government's attorneys responded to Hetzel by arguing that the price appreciation of the Tornado Cash token, TORN, directly benefited TORN holders and that withdrawal fees were a form of accrued benefits for the protocol's founders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The notice of appeal was filed by attorneys for Coin Center in 2023. Source: Court Listener<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

US Tornado Cash consumers are subject of 2022 Coin Center lawsuit<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The United States Treasury Department sanctioned over 40 wallet addresses purportedly associated with the Tornado Cash mixture service in August 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Treasury Department asserted that these individuals and entities were responsible for approximately $7 billion in money laundering schemes and other illicit transactions at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2022, Coin Center filed a lawsuit on behalf of US residents who were using the service to safeguard their privacy in response to the actions of the US Treasury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Coin Center's attorneys, OFAC and the US Treasury<\/a> “exceeded their statutory authority” by sanctioning the blending service. The attorneys emphasized that their clients were using the service for lawful purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US Treasury clarified shortly after Tornado Cash was sanctioned that the Tornado Cash code cannot be published or replicated online in violation of sanctions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Treasury also urged individuals who utilized the service before its sanctioning to apply for an OFAC license and acknowledged that it would approve non-illicit transactions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Coin Center is appealing a previous ruling by the United States district court for Northern Florida, which determined that Tornado Cash generates indirect advantages for foreign entities and individuals that qualify as a financial interest subject to sanctions from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Jeffrey S. Hetzel, the legal counsel for Coin Center, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":57702,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[19215,1727,11784,10782],"class_list":["post-100185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-coin-centre","tag-lawsuit","tag-ofac","tag-tornado-cash-2"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Coin-Center.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}