The Division of Treasury has lifted Sanctions on Twister Money, the Ethereum primarily based good contract mixer, following a sequence of authorized defeats and administrative challenges.
“Based mostly on the Administration’s evaluation of the novel authorized and coverage points raised by use of economic sanctions towards monetary and industrial exercise occurring inside evolving know-how and authorized environments, we’ve got exercised our discretion to take away the financial sanctions towards Twister Money as mirrored in Treasury’s Monday submitting in Van Loon v. Division of the Treasury,” the Treasury Division said.
Fast Overview of the Twister Money Story
Twister Money was launched in 2019 as a decentralized protocol to boost transaction privateness on Ethereum.
In August 2022, the mixer was added to the Workplace of International Property Management (OFAC) checklist, which incorporates sanctioned people and entities. U.S. legislation enforcement alleged that Twister Money facilitated over $7 billion in cash laundering, together with funds linked to North Korea’s Lazarus Group.
This led to a ban on U.S. individuals utilizing the service and authorized motion towards its co-founders, Roman Storm and Roman Semenov, who have been indicted in 2023 for cash laundering tied to over $1 billion in transactions.
Six Twister Money customers, backed by Coinbase, sued the Treasury, difficult the sanctions.
A Texas federal court docket dominated in January 2025 that the good contracts couldn’t be sanctioned, a choice upheld by the Fifth Circuit in November 2024.
As we speak the Treasury formally lifted the sanctions, citing evolving authorized and technological concerns, although it expressed concern about ongoing illicit crypto actions and bolstered its intent and authority to proceed DPRK sanctions.
Pressure Continues
The Treasury however bolstered its intent to implement sanctions towards Democratic Individuals’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), an ongoing supply of geopolitical pressure given the latest $1 billion+ hack from Bybit argued to have been executed by Lazarous, a hacking group with DRKP ties.
“We stay deeply involved concerning the important state-sponsored hacking and cash laundering marketing campaign aimed toward stealing, buying, and deploying digital property for the Democratic Individuals’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the Kim regime,” the company said.
“Treasury will proceed to observe intently any transactions which will profit malicious cyber actors or the DPRK, and U.S. individuals ought to train warning earlier than participating in transactions that current such dangers.”
Though the lifted sanction seems to be excellent news for monetary privateness software program builders, it’s too early to inform what this implies for the Bitcoin and crypto trade on the whole, or whether or not it is going to affect upcoming court docket circumstances like these towards the Samurai Pockets builders.
“Digital property current monumental alternatives for innovation and worth creation for the American folks,” stated Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent. “Securing the digital asset trade from abuse by North Korea and different illicit actors is important to establishing U.S. management and making certain that the American folks can profit from monetary innovation and inclusion.”
