Major U.S. Exchange Backs Lawsuit Challenging OFAC Tornado Cash Sanctions

Last week Coinbase announced that it was funding a lawsuit brought by six people that challenges the recent action by the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioning the Tornado Cash smart contracts. The lawsuit asks the court to remove the Tornado Cash smart contract addresses from OFAC's Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) List. The plaintiffs argue that OFAC exceeded its authority from Congress and the president in sanctioning open-source technology rather than sanctioning bad actors who used it and those actors' property. They also allege that OFAC's actions infringe on their constitutional rights "and threaten[] the ability of law-abiding Americans to engage freely and privately in financial transactions."