Tornado Cash

Analysis

North Korean IT Workers Have Been Building DeFi Protocols Since 2020. The $285M Drift Hack Shows Why That Matters.

A researcher says over 40 DeFi platforms have employed DPRK state-linked developers. Their seven years of blockchain experience is, as she notes, not a lie. The Drift Protocol exploit was not a code bug. It was a six-month intelligence operation conducted by a North Korean state-affiliated group that attended conferences, deposited real capital, and waited.

By Ramy Morton
News

Prosecutors Reject Tornado Cash Co-founder's Copyright Defense. The Retrial Is Still Coming.

SDNY US Attorney Jay Clayton has pushed back against Roman Storm's attempt to use a 2026 Supreme Court copyright ruling as a defense against the two charges a jury deadlocked on last year. The case is a live contradiction: the same DOJ that issued a memo ending 'regulation by prosecution' on crypto platforms is now pursuing a retrial that could send a developer to prison for 40 years for writing open-source code.

By Ramy Morton

Tornado Cash Overview

Tornado Cash is an Ethereum privacy mixer that became the center of a landmark fight over code, sanctions, and free speech. This tag tracks the OFAC sanctions and their partial reversal, the criminal case against developer Roman Storm, its use by hackers including Lazarus, and the broader question of whether writing privacy software is a crime. Coinliva covers the court rulings, the sanctions news, and what the case means for open-source developers.