According to Preston Van Loon, an Ethereum developer, cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash has been partially unbanned and is now accessible on GitHub, a software development platform, after a long suspension resulting from the ban on United States citizens from using Tornado Cash on August 8 by OFAC.
Tornado Cash is a program built on the Ethereum blockchain that enables users to obscure information trails on the blockchain to conceal their cryptocurrency transactions and safeguard their privacy.
On Thursday, September 23, Preston Van Loon took to Twitter to announce that GitHub had partially lifted its restriction on the Tornado Cash organization and its contributors.
According to the developer, GitHub has not yet restored Tornado Cash code repositories to full functionality, and they are only available in read-only mode, encouraging GitHub to reverse all actions on Tornado Cash.
But that is progress from an outright ban. I still encourage GitHub to reverse all actions and return the repositories to their former status,” Van Loon stated.
The partial lifting of the ban on Tornado Cash on GitHub came shortly after the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) updated its stance on Tornado Cash, stating that United States (U.S.) citizens would not violate sanctions by downloading or copying the mixer’s code or making it accessible online and noted that if Tornado Cash resurfaces online, United States citizens will not be prevented from accessing it.
On August 8, the U.S OFAC banned 44 USD Coin (USDC), and Ether (ETH) addresses connected to the mixer and prohibited U.S. citizens from using Tornado Cash. Also, the ban resulted in the detention of Tornado Cash developers for their alleged role in financial fraud via the platform.
According to GitHub statistics, the most recent Tornado Cash repository updates occurred on August 22, just after Roman Semenov, Tornado Cash co-founder announced his account was on the platform.
