Major DeFi (decentralized finance) web apps reportedly blacklisted prominent cryptocurrency users over the weekend, as the community continues to adjust to recent Tornado Cash fines.
Justin Sun, the founder of Tron, claimed he was “formally excluded” from the Aave lending protocol after receiving a tiny quantity of ether “randomly” via the cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash.
According to analytics company PeckShield, the same 0.01 ETH ($19.25) “dust assault” affected more than 600 addresses, including cryptocurrency exchanges and well-known people like Jimmy Fallon and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control blacklisted Tornado Cash on Monday as a result of the North Korean hacker group Lazarus Group using it to resell stolen digital assets. Interacting with its Ethereum smart contracts was forbidden for US persons as a result of the prohibition.
A total of 45 Ethereum addresses connected to Tornado Cash were sanctioned by OFAC, many of which were USDC contracts. As a result, MakerDAO co-founder Rune Christensen decided to completely remove the stablecoin from the organization’s treasury.
A 29-year-old Tornado Cash developer was detained in Amsterdam a few days later by the Dutch financial crimes agency FIOD on suspicion of helping to facilitate money laundering through the platform.
On Friday, Sun tweeted about his ban. Anthony Sassano, a supporter of Ethereum, claimed he received similar treatment.
Later, Aave responded to the online uproar with a separate Twitter thread. The company explained that in order to assure compliance with US sanctions, it has deployed an API maintained by compliance startup TRM Labs.
