Hackers continue to successfully launder money through Tornado Cash despite sanctions

Since the beginning of 2023, cybercriminals have successfully withdrawn almost $250 million from the Tornado Cash mixer despite sanctions restrictions

The sanctions of the US authorities against the Tornado Cash mixer hardly prevented the attackers from laundering cryptocurrency through it. This is the conclusion reached by MistTrack analysts in their report for the first half of 2023.

According to their calculations, as of the end of June, cybercriminals deposited more than 165,000 ether (ETH) (approximately $285 million) into Tornado Cash addresses. More than 142,340 ETH (approximately $246 million) were withdrawn from the mixer over the same period of time.

Compared to other mixers, Tornado Cash still maintains a large gap in terms of the volume of laundered cryptocurrency. For example, the addresses of the eXch mixer received a little less than 10,000 ETH (about $17.5 million) in the first half of 2023. MistTrack did not specify how much cryptocurrency went to Sinbad (formerly. Blender), which is actively used by Atomic Wallet hackers.

However, in general, activity around Tornado Cash has fallen, although it cannot be unequivocally stated that the sanctions have "buried" the mixer. As you can see above in the graph from Dune Analytics, in May 2022, over $100 million in ETH was received by mixer addresses on a daily basis.

Recall that in August 2022, the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the US Department of the Treasury imposed sanctions against Tornado Cash. According to the regulator's calculations, the platform has helped launder more than $7 billion worth of assets since its launch in 2019.

Later, the US Treasury faced a lawsuit from the non-profit organization Coin Center, which went to court because of sanctions against the mixer. The organization pointed out that the restrictions imposed violate the constitutional rights of US citizens, since Americans use a mixer to protect their property.