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Jul 7, 2025, 6:15 p.m.
- Tornado Cash’s price increased nearly 5% after a U.S. appeals court allowed the dismissal of a lawsuit against the Treasury Department.
- The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled to dismiss the case following the removal of sanctions by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
- Despite the removal of sanctions, the U.S. government continues to pursue criminal charges against Tornado Cash developers Roman Storm and Roman Semenov.
Tornado Cash’s price rose just under 5% Monday after news circulated on X that a U.S. appeals court had green-lit the end of a lawsuit against the Treasury Department.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on July 3 that the lawsuit, brought by crypto interest group Coin Center against the Treasury Department and various government officials, could be dismissed following the Office of Foreign Assets Control’s ending of sanctions against the crypto mixer and a separate court ruling blocking OFAC from enforcing these sanctions.
TORN’s price traded at $9.67, up from $9.16 earlier in the day.
Last month, Coin Center and the Treasury Department filed a joint motion asking the appellate court to vacate a Texas district court’s April ruling that the way that OFAC went about designating Tornado Cash was unlawful, and permanently enjoining the agency from enforcing sanctions against it in the future.
OFAC from its sanctions list in March of this year, after — the Fifth Circuit — ruled that it could not sanction smart contracts. And in April, a district court judge also in the Fifth Circuit ruled that OFAC . After several extensions of the abeyance period, this decision became legally binding on June 28. The government agreed not to appeal the decision.
Coin Center’s Executive Director Peter Van Valkenburgh , writing: “This is the official end to our court battle over the statutory authority behind the [Tornado Cash] sanctions. The government was not interested in moving forward and defending their dangerously overbroad interpretation of sanctions laws.”
In their June motion, the parties explained that, while they wanted the district court’s ruling vacated for different reasons — Coin Center because the appeal would become moot after the Texas district court’s judgment became final and unappealable in June, and the government because “OFAC’s rescission of the designation moot[ed] this appeal — they agreed that the best course of action would be for the Eleventh Circuit court to vacate the district court’s ruling and remand with instructions to dismiss.
Despite removing Tornado Cash from the sanctions list, the U.S. government continues to pursue criminal money laundering charges against Tornado Cash developers Roman Storm and Roman Semenov. Storm’s trial is slated to begin June 14 in New York.
Nikhilesh De is CoinDesk’s managing editor for global policy and regulation, covering regulators, lawmakers and institutions. He owns < $50 in BTC and < $20 in ETH. He won a Gerald Loeb award in the beat reporting category as part of CoinDesk’s blockbuster FTX coverage in 2023, and was named the Association of Cryptocurrency Journalists and Researchers’ Journalist of the Year in 2020.
On the news team at CoinDesk, Cheyenne focuses on crypto regulation and crime. Cheyenne is originally from Houston, Texas. She studied political science at Tulane University in Louisiana. In December 2021, she graduated from CUNY’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, where she focused on business and economics reporting. She has no significant crypto holdings.
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