Pryor Cashman Partner Jeffrey Alberts, who leads the firm's White Collar Defense + Investigations practice and co-heads the FinTech Group, talked to the Wall Street Journal about lawsuits that are seeking to get the U.S. Department of the Treasury to remove crypto mixer Tornado Cash from its sanctions list.
In "Removing Sanctions on Crypto Mixer Tornado Cash Won't Be Easy," Jeff weighed in on the litigations:
The outcome of the suits could potentially clarify OFAC's legal authority and affect compliance practices, Mr. Alberts said. Other participants in the decentralized-finance industry have expressed similar concerns about OFAC's power to sanction Tornado Cash.
One question, Mr. Alberts said, is whether OFAC can sanction smart contracts—programs that automatically move crypto around based on rules enshrined in computer code—or a blockchain token by arguing that the projects were used by bad actors that threaten national security.
"Hopefully, these questions will be answered soon," he said. "For now, the Treasury Department has introduced more unpredictability into the future of blockchain."
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Originally Published by Wall Street Journal
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