Tornado Cash’s native token, TORN, saw its price skyrocket more than 60% following a formal delisting of the cryptocurrency mixing protocol from the U.S. Treasury Department’s sanctions list
After the ruling of a federal court at the end of 2024, the move made it clearer that immutable smart contracts cannot fall under the label of “property” in American sanctions law.
As soon as the news was announced, TORN’s price jumped from approximately $7.50 to a peak of $15.36, with an 1860% increase in trading volume to $2.97 million. Currently, at writing, the price remains 45% above, trading at $12.34.
The lifting of sanctions increased investors’ confidence, with most traders seeing this as a positive development for privacy-based crypto projects in the legal regime.
In November 2024, the Fifth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals held that Tornado Cash’s smart contracts are not property for purposes of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
This restricted the Treasury’s ability to sanction the protocol. As a result, the agency delisted Tornado Cash from the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list.
Even with delisting, legal proceedings against Tornado Cash developers continue. Roman Storm, a co-founder, will go on trial in July 2025 on charges of money laundering and sanctions breaches, and Roman Semenov continues to be listed on the SDN list of North Korea-related sanctions.
While Treasury’s action lifts a significant regulatory cloud, Tornado Cash also has continuing legal and reputation-related issues. Nevertheless, the TORN token currently is experiencing renewed market attention, driven by hope around its legal position and potential in the DeFi space going forward.
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