Aave ban for Tron founder Sun after Tornado Cash ETH payment
‘Big Aave fan’ Justin Sun reinstated after plea to Aave founder Stani Kulechov via Twitter
Justin Sun, the founder of Tron (TRX) was temporarily banned from decentralised finance (DeFi) protocol Aave for receiving 0.1 ETH “randomly” from blacklisted cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash.
The Tron founder revealed this news via Twitter on 13 August and called for assistance from Stani Kulechov, founder and CEO of Aave.
The next day, Sun’s Aave account was reinstated, which he also tweeted out and thanked Kulechov for the help and said he is a “big Aave fan”.
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US Treasury blacklists Tornado Cash
Earlier in August, Tornado Cash was sanctioned by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which is part of the US Department of the Treasury.
OFAC alleged that Tornado Cash was used to launder $7bn (£5.7bn) worth of crypto since its creation in 2019 and claimed Tornado Cash was used in the theft of more than $455m (£376m) stolen by the Lazarus Group, a Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) state-sponsored hacking group that was also sanctioned by the US in 2019.
Additionally, OFAC alleged that Tornado Cash was used to launder more $96m (£79m) of funds derived from the June 2022 US crypto company Harmony Bridge heist and $7.8m (£6.4m) from the August 2022 heist of US crypto firm Nomad.
OFAC added cybercriminals have used Tornado Cash to “obfuscate the proceeds from illicit cyber activity and other crimes”.
While the Treasury agency acknowledged that “most virtual currency activity is licit”, it went on and said that crypto “can be used for illicit activity, including sanctions evasion through mixers, peer-to-peer exchangers, darknet markets, and exchanges.”
Both TRX and TORN down
Since being blacklisted, the native governance token of Tornado Cash, TORN has been on a downwards trend and as of earlier today, 15 August 2022, it was down 5.42% and was trading at $13.18, according to CoinMarketCap.
At the same time, CoinMarketCap stated TRX was also down by 3.01% and had been trading at $0.068.
