The U.S. Department of Treasury announced today that it has removed sanctions against Tornado Cash, a cryptocurrency mixer used by North Korean Lazarus hackers to launder hundreds of millions stolen in multiple crypto heists. The Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Tornado Cash in August 2022 for helping launder over $7 billion since its creation in 2019. North Korea’s Lazarus hacking group used the decentralized mixer to launder roughly $455 million of the $620 million worth of Ethereum stolen from Axie Infinity’s Ronin network in April 2022. The crypto tumbler was also used to launder at least $7.8 million from the August Nomad Heist (out of the $150 million stolen) and over $96 million after the June Harmony Bridge hack (out of $100 million stolen). Cybercriminals employed it to make it harder to trace stolen funds after hacking the Beanstalk DeFi platform, blockchain music platform Audius, and the decentralized cryptocurrency exchange Uniswap, as well as in the Arbix Finance exit scam. “We remain deeply concerned about the significant state-sponsored hacking and money laundering campaign aimed at stealing, acquiring, and deploying digital assets for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the Kim regime,” the Treasury Department said in a Friday press release.

Full report : The US Treasury’s sanctions watchdog removes Tornado Cash from its global blacklist, after a federal appeals court ruled against the sanctions in November 2024.