Tornado Cash Banned in the US, But Will This Ban Work?

This week, the well-known crypto mixer Tornado Cash was launched in the United States banished as it were. This crypto mixer was known for merging different crypto transactions in order to disguise the origin of the crypto coins. Since the ban, however, an anonymous user has already shown in a playful way that the ban may not or hardly be enforced.

Tornado Cash

Due to the de facto US government ban on Tornado Cash, US citizens are no longer allowed to use the service. Earlier this year, another crypto mixerBlender.io, banned in the United States.

This government attack on crypto mixers has everything to do with the fact that crypto mixers are disproportionate are often used by criminals. It became clear a while ago that Blender.io was used by the infamous North Korean hackers Lazarus Group. It is therefore not entirely surprising that the US authorities went on the hunt for crypto mixers.

The ‘dusting’ of celebrities

However, there is a lot of doubt about the actual enforcement of the ban. At first sight this seems almost impossible, which means that the ban actually makes no sense at all. An anonymous user has showcased this in an extremely interesting way.

He has a large number of celebrities, including Steve Aoki, Jimmy Fallon, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and others ‘dusted’. Dusten in this case means that the anonymous person has sent all these celebrities a little bit of cryptocurrency via Tornado Cash. Most likely, this ludicrous action was carried out to prove that the Tornado Cash ban is completely useless.

It is now illegal for US citizens to interact with Tornado Cash, and that can include receiving money from addresses using the app. But in reality, it is impossible to stop other people from sending crypto to your wallet address if this wallet is publicly known.