In a conversation on Twitter, Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Vitalik Buterin said he used Tornado Cash so he could donate to Ukraine. His statement comes just days after OFAC blacklisted the cryptocurrency mixer, banning US citizens from using it.
Vitalik Buterin used Tornado Cash to help Ukraine
Barely a day after the cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash was added to the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) blacklist, Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Vitalik Buterin said he used the protocol to donate to Ukraine.
The crypto-philanthropist made this statement in response to Jeff Coleman, co-founder of a startup specializing in state channels for Ethereum, who said that Tornado Cash could be useful for making anonymous donations to Ukraine, especially if you were domiciled in Russia during wartime.
To which Vitalik rather explicitly replied:
“I’m going to introduce myself as someone who used Tornado Cash in order to donate to precisely this cause.”
In response to a Twitter user asking why he was speaking publicly about this if he needed to go through a cryptocurrency mixer to preserve his anonymity, Vitalik replied that his intention “was to protect the recipients,” not himself.
Vitalik Buterin is not new to the subject of Russia’s actions. In fact, he said there that the Russian government knew his position on the subject, referring to a tweet where he replied to the editor-in-chief of the Russian media RT “to go f*ck yourself”.
Tornado Cash blender ends in the U.S.
We told you 2 days ago, OFAC, under the authority of the U.S. Treasury Department, has blacklisted cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash, accusing it of, among other things, facilitating the theft of $7 billion worth of cryptocurrencies since its inception in 2019 by allowing individual thieves to conceal their identities.
Cryptocurrency mixers allow their users to deposit a certain amount of cryptocurrencies and retrieve it anonymously through different wallets.
This decision has caused a stir, especially because it is indeed the code of the protocol itself that has been attacked, even though it is not illegal in itself. Indeed, it is the use that is made of it that is problematic.
As far as Ukraine is concerned, its president Volodymyr Zelensky had signed a law in March in order to develop and promote the use of crypto-currencies in the country following the numerous donations in crypto-currencies coming from all over the world. Some people had then to make use of mixers like Tornado Cash, especially Russian residents.
