Crypto advocacy group Coin Center has criticized the latest indictment of two former Tornado Cash developers, arguing that the facts offered don’t show any clear violations of money-transmitting-related offenses.
Roman Storm and Roman Semenov were indicted by the United States Office of Foreign Asset Control on Aug. 23 for conspiring to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business, among other charges.
In a follow-up opinion piece, Coin Center research director Peter Van Valkenburgh argues that the claims in the indictment appear to run counter to guidance from the United States Financial Crimes Enforcement Network — arguing that Tornado Cash only provides the software to transmit money rather than transmitting the money itself.
New Tornado Cash indictments seem to run counter to FinCEN guidance
Coin Center’s initial thoughts on a case that could potentially criminalize the publication of software codehttps://t.co/YCBv3vsZAE
— Neeraj K Agrawal (@NeerajKA) August 23, 2023
“The only thing the indictment claims regarding the defendants’ unlicensed money transmission is…