The Eleventh Circuit Courtroom of Appeals on July 3 vacated the Northern District of Florida’s 2023 order upholding the Treasury’s sanctions in opposition to Twister Money and instructed the decrease court docket to dismiss the case.
The one-page mandate ends the Coin Center v. Yellen enchantment, the one remaining case over OFAC’s August 2022 designation of the Ethereum-based privateness mixer.
The Northern District of Florida should enter a brief dismissal on remand to implement the appellate mandate.
No celebration has introduced an intention to hunt Supreme Courtroom evaluate of the vacatur order; doing so would require a recent enchantment from a brand new judgment, which the delisting makes unbelievable.
Mandate ends Coin Heart enchantment
On Oct. 30, 2023, the district court docket dominated that Twister Money certified as an “affiliation” whose sensible contracts amounted to blocked property below the Worldwide Emergency Financial Powers Act, granting abstract judgment to the Treasury.
Coin Heart’s November 2023 discover of enchantment arrange a circuit break up when, on Nov. 26, 2024, the Fifth Circuit in Van Loon v. Treasury reversed a Texas court docket and declared that immutable smart-contract code just isn’t property and can’t be sanctioned.
Treasury selected to not petition the Supreme Courtroom after Van Loon. As a substitute, on Mar. 21, it delisted every Tornado Cash address, stating that newer “focused instruments” would handle illicit crypto flows extra exactly.
The step erased the factual damage alleged by the Coin Heart plaintiffs, resulting in each side submitting a joint movement asking the Eleventh Circuit to vacate the district ruling and remand with directions to dismiss for mootness.
The panel granted that request and issued its mandate, formally closing appellate docket 23-13698.
Restricted sensible change for the mixer
The Twister Money protocol stays operational on-chain, free from centralized management. Its governance token, TORN, trades on decentralized exchanges which have by no means delisted it.
Delisting and the enchantment’s dismissal don’t have an effect on the legal proceedings in opposition to Twister Money co-founders Roman Storm and Roman Semenov, who face cash laundering fees within the Southern District of New York.
Moreover, it doesn’t resolve whether or not builders might be held answerable for downstream use of autonomous code. These questions will probably attain courts solely by means of future enforcement actions quite than this concluded civil swimsuit.
With the sanctions lifted and the litigation concluded, Twister Money returns to the regulatory gray zone that ruled it earlier than August 2022, whereas OFAC continues to sign that it could craft narrower designations for privateness instruments that demonstrably serve sanctioned actors.
