Crypto industry-focused research and advocacy organization Coin Center aims to challenge what is promoted. OFAC Sanctions against Tornado Cash mixer.

Analysis: What is and is not a sanctioned asset in the Tornado Cash case.

OFAC oversteps its legal authority by treating autonomous code as a “person”.https://t.co/kDjoumahF1

— Coin Center (@coincenter) 15 August 2022

The Agency, after reviewing the Chamber’s decision, concluded that OFAC had overstepped its administrative powers.

The sanctions were directed at the mixing service’s smart contract and associated wallets. However, Jerry Brito, CEO of Coin Center, and Peter Van Valkenburgh, head of research, wrote in a blog post that these assets cannot defy restrictions.

OFAC is overstepping its legal mandate by treating the autonomous code as a ‘personality’,” they said.

Experts emphasized the need to separate the concepts of “businesses” and “applications” in the case of Tornado Cash.

Included in the sanctions list of the Ministry of Finance in May (SDN) bitcoin mixer Blender.io and associated wallets. Coin Center experts stated that both the company and the addresses are controlled by certain people.

The Tornado Cash team developed but does not manage the mixing service – the app is open source and can be installed and run by anyone.

Experts cited OFAC provisions:

“The ultimate purpose of sanctions is not to punish but to bring about positive behavior change. OFAC removes hundreds of individuals and organizations from the SDN list each year. Every removal is based on careful scrutiny.”

According to them, it is not clear how a smart contract could change its behavior or challenge its inclusion in SDN.

“These actions send a signal that a certain class of tools and software should not be used by Americans, even for purely legitimate purposes (and indeed appears to be designed to do so),” the blog says.

Brito and Van Valkenburgh also noted that as a result of the sanctions, innocent citizens’ funds were blocked and deprived of the opportunity to legally withdraw them.

The organization will focus on providing legal aid to victims, keeping the public and legislators informed about the situation.

The Coin Center will also begin to explore with attorneys the possibility of challenging OFAC’s actions in court.

Recall that in the decentralized autonomous organization Tornado DAO urged the society to hire lawyers to combat the imposed sanctions.

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