Vitalik Buterin Admits Using the U.S.-Sanctioned Tornado Cash to Donate to Ukraine

In a recent unfolding, Vitalik Buterin, one of the creators of Ethereum (ETH) disclosed that he used the sanctioned crypto mixing platform, Tornado Cash to send funds to support Ukraine.

The United States Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), announced the sanctioning of Tornado Cash on Monday.

According to the disclosure, Vitalik Buterin chose the protocol which facilitates anonymous transactions to protect the recipients of the donations, not himself. 

“I’ll out myself as someone who has used Tornado Cash to donate to this exact cause. My intent was protecting the recipients, not myself. The RU government knows my positions on the Ukraine issue anyway,” Vitalik Buterin stated. 

This he said in response to a Twitter discussion about the sanctioning of Tornado Cash and the blacklisting of certain wallet addresses by the watchdog agency, OFAC.

The discussion started with Jeff Coleman on the need for financial privacy, especially in the case of donating to the Ukrainians during the intense war with the Russian government.   

He wrote, “wanting to donate to Ukraine is a great example of a valid need for financial privacy: even if the government where you live is in full support, you might not want the Russian government to have full details of your actions.”

Read Also: US Treasury Sanctions Tornado Cash For Supporting Cyber Crimes

Tornado Cash Sanctioned

The crypto mixer was sanctioned on Monday by the United States Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) for facilitating and technologically supporting cyber crimes and money laundering. 

So far, crypto hackers have laundered over $7 billion worth of assets using Tornado Cash. Henceforth, U.S. citizens have been banned from using the services of the crypto mixing protocol. 

While several entities have complied with this action by OFAC, some companies like Coin Center, a similar platform that facilitates crypto lobbying believe that the sanctions may be illegal citing that it goes against the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. 

Meanwhile, the United States-based stablecoin issuer, Circle, has blacklisted all addresses on the OFAC sanction list. In turn, about 75,000 USDC belonging to Tornado users have been locked by Circle.

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