On Monday, the price of Tornado Cash experienced a nearly 5% increase after news broke on social media platform X that a US appeals court had given the green light to dismiss a lawsuit against the Treasury Department. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals made this ruling on July 3, allowing the lawsuit, which was initiated by Coin Center against the Treasury Department and several government officials, to be dropped. This decision follows the Office of Foreign Assets Control's removal of sanctions against the cryptocurrency mixer and a separate court ruling that blocked OFAC from enforcing these sanctions. As a result, TORN's price rose to $9.67, up from $9.16 earlier in the day.
In the previous month, Coin Center and the Treasury Department had jointly filed a motion requesting the appellate court to overturn a Texas district court's April ruling, which deemed the manner in which OFAC designated Tornado Cash as unlawful and permanently blocked the agency from enforcing sanctions against it. Following a ruling by the Fifth Circuit appeals court that OFAC cannot sanction smart contracts, the agency delisted Tornado Cash from its sanctions list in March. Additionally, a district court judge in the Fifth Circuit ruled in April that OFAC cannot sanction Tornado Cash, with this decision becoming legally binding on June 28 after the government agreed not to appeal.
Coin Center's Executive Director, Peter Van Valkenburgh, expressed his satisfaction with the decision on social media platform X, stating that it marked the official end to their court battle regarding the statutory authority behind the Tornado Cash sanctions. The government had chosen not to pursue the case further, defending their broad interpretation of sanctions laws. The parties involved had agreed that the best course of action would be for the Eleventh Circuit court to overturn the district court's ruling and remand with instructions to dismiss, as the appeal had become moot.
Although Tornado Cash has been removed from the sanctions list, the US government is still pursuing criminal money laundering charges against the platform's developers, Roman Storm and Roman Semenov, with Storm's trial scheduled to begin on June 14 in New York.