Crypto-Mixing Service Tornado Cash Code Is Back on GitHub

Code repositories for the Ethereum-based mixer Tornado Cash were relisted on GitHub on Thursday.

The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets (OFAC) banned Americans last month from using Tornado Cash, a decentralized privacy service that mixes cryptocurrencies together to obfuscate the original address. The mixer was blacklisted and designated under the Specially Designated National list because the North Korean hacking group Lazarus had used it in the past.

GitHub is a centralized internet hosting service for software development often used by Ethereum developers. Within hours of the OFAC announcement, GitHub, along with other platforms, removed Tornado Cash from their sites in order to comply with the new U.S. regulation.

Read more: US Treasury's Tornado Cash Sanctions Are ‘Unprecedented,’ Warns Congressman

Ethereum developers – believing that computer code is protected speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution – have called for platforms that host the Tornado Cash code to reverse their bans. In particular, Ethereum core developer Preston Van Loon asked for GitHub to relist the mixer’s code on Sept. 13.

.@github has unbanned the @TornadoCash organization and contributors on their platform! https://t.co/ktdghDQKx8 https://t.co/Md17vFE9DZ

— prestonvanloon.eth (@preston_vanloon) September 22, 2022

Earlier this month, OFAC released clarifications on how Americans could recover their funds that were locked with Tornado Cash.

Read more: US Treasury Explains How Americans Can Recover Crypto Locked in Tornado Cash