The U.S. sanctioning of prominent cryptocurrency platform Tornado Cash exposed technical gaps in the government’s ability to prevent criminals, national adversaries and extremist groups from using the services to launder money and finance their operations, analysts said. Among the central challenges: Cryptocurrency platforms are increasingly run by computer code distributed across computers around the world, rather than by individuals facilitating transactions.
“It is likely that nearly all responsible registered Virtual Asset Service Providers also took steps to block customers from transacting with these addresses, or face charges of willfully avoiding US sanctions compliance obligations,” Circle Chief Executive Jeremy Allaire wrote on Twitter.