The transfer makes it unlawful for US residents to work together with any wallets or contracts associated to Twister Money.
Crypto mixing service Twister Money is now banned in within the U.S..
On August 8, the Workplace of International Asset Management, an enforcement company of the U.S. Treasury Division, added Twister Money to its Specifically Designated Nationals listing.
The listing contains 1000’s of individuals, firms, and organizations which have been recognized as posing a risk to U.S. nationwide safety.
The transfer makes it unlawful for US residents to work together with any wallets or contracts associated to Twister Money.
Sensible Contracts
Twister Money is understood for anonymizing Ethereum transactions by breaking the on-chain hyperlink between supply and vacation spot addresses. Its sensible contracts settle for crypto deposits that alternate addresses can then withdraw.
In accordance with the US Treasury, Twister has been used to launder over $7B of crypto belongings since its creation in 2019. It was additionally allegedly utilized by North Korean hackers The Lazarus Group to launder over $455M from their assault on Axie Infinity’s Ronin community. The Treasury additionally says that over $96M in crypto was laundered from the Concord Bridge Heist and not less than $7.8M from the Nomad Heist.
“Regardless of public assurances in any other case, Twister Money has repeatedly did not impose efficient controls designed to cease it from laundering funds for malicious cyber actors regularly and with out fundamental measures to deal with its dangers,” mentioned Brian E. Nelson, Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Monetary Intelligence.
“Treasury will proceed to aggressively pursue actions in opposition to mixers that launder digital foreign money for criminals and those that help them.”
Brian E. Nelson
Twister just isn’t the primary crypto mixing service to be banned. In Might, OFAC sanctioned Blender.io after it too was allegedly used to launder cash from a hack in opposition to the Ronin community. The Treasury report states that “digital foreign money mixers that help criminals are a risk to US nationwide safety” and that they may proceed to research crypto mixers.
Inside an hour of the announcement, crypto customers on Twitter are already discussing forking the Twister code to create a brand new mixer.
