CEO of SpankChain Hints at Floating a Tornado Cash Successor

Ameen Soleimani, the co-founder and CEO of SpankChain and Reflex Labs, has hinted at the revival of the crypto mixer app like Tornado Cash, even though the crypto mixing service has earned heavy scrutiny from regulators.

According to a recent tweet from Ameen, he is developing a solutions sequel to Tornado Cash dubbed Privacy Pools v0 on behalf of MolochDAO, a provider of grants for Ethereum (ETH) project development. Ameen’s announcement was greeted with a wave of positive reactions by members of the crypto community.

Crypto mixer apps generally use a number of techniques to obfuscate the trail of crypto transactions. Regulators have argued that this feature has helped criminal elements carry out fraudulent transactions which they say is a threat to national security.

Authorities Sanction Crypto Mixers

Recall that the cryptocurrency mixer was sanctioned last year by the United States Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) over the laundering of about $7 billion. As part of the sanction, all assets, and properties belonging to the penalized virtual assets mixer which are currently in the U.S. or under the control of U.S. residents and citizens have been blocked. As such, it must be reported to OFAC.

Aside from Tornado Cash, several other crypto mixers have been sanctioned by the U.S. Department of Treasury. North Korean-based crypto mixer Blender.io was sanctioned in May last year for money laundering. It assisted Lazarus Group in laundering part of the $625 million stolen from Axie Infinity’s Ronin Bridge.

Following the sanction of the mixer app, the Dutch Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD) arrested the Tornado cash developer Alex Pertsev, for his involvement in the laundering of the $7 billion funds which was obtained from illicit activities. Pertsev remains in custody ahead of his hearing later in April.

Meanwhile, Kevin O’Leary, a Canadian businessman, and author issued a bold statement regarding the crypto mixer. In the podcast, he said Tornado Cash is one of those firms with a ‘Crypto Cowboys’ culture that deserves no space in the ecosystem. 

Although Kevin’s opinion seems to be the odd one among general opinions, he believes the sanction is the best as the criminal aiding crypto firm is part of the reasons institutional funding is not coming into the space as it used to.