Before US Sanctions, Tornado Cash Was Considered a Key Tool for NFT Scams

According to blockchain analytics company Elliptic Enterprises, Tornado Cash, a cryptocurrency mixer that has been sanctioned by the US, was the go-to method for laundering illegal earnings from nonfungible token schemes before the ban.

In a study, the company stated that the mixer “was the source of $137.6 million in cryptoassets processed by NFT markets and the laundering tool of choice for 52% of NFT scam revenues before being sanctioned.” By combining tokens from several sources before transferring them to the final beneficiaries, services provided by platforms like Tornado Cash can be used to conceal transactions, making them a popular tool among criminals. An inquiry for comment was not immediately answered by Tornado Cash.

Tornado Cash was sanctioned earlier this month by Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which claimed that since its launch in 2019, more than $7 billion worth of cryptocurrency, including hundreds of millions of dollars in funds stolen by North Korean hackers, had been laundered through the platform. The department had previously taken similar action in May against the online mixer Blender.io.

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