Are Crypto Mixer Developers at Risk? Did Tornado Cash Make Them Vulnerable?

Crypto mixer developers must be aware of the environment for the recent activity at Tornado Cash

It is a never-ending story as far as the challenges to the crypto market are concerned. Now the crypto developers are facing a risky situation. The event that has caused concern about the state of the developers is the news that a person, male and 29 years old, has been arrested in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, on the ground of being a suspected Tornado Cash developer. It is not that the crypto mixer developers were enjoying a risk-free ambiance up until now. But the arrest has raised concern about them being particularly vulnerable in the aftermath of the US sanction of Tornado Cash (TORN).

A statement from the Dutch authorities mentions that the arrested man is suspected of involvement in concealing criminal financial flows and facilitating money laundering by mixing cryptocurrencies through the Ethereum mixing service Tornado Cash or TORN. The concern also stems from the statement regarding the crypto market that multiple arrests are a possibility.

Established in 2019, Tornado Cash or popularly known as TORN is an Internet-based mixing service for cryptocurrencies. It helps to conceal the origin or destination of cryptocurrencies. This being the case, the dubious or even criminal origin of the cryptocurrencies is not usually checked by such mixing services. Users of a crypto mixing service prefer such non-checking to ensure anonymity. DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) which conducts Tornado Cash has been under surveillance for some time for its alleged role in concealing large-scale criminal money flows, including online thefts of cryptocurrencies. What has been a major headache of the western countries, especially the US, is its association with some North Korean groups in the crypto market. Tornado Cash found a place on the sanctions list of the US on 8 August 2022.

While the course of action to be taken in the future is not exactly clear as yet, what is evident is that a war is on against money laundering. The arrested person who is a crypto mixer has been suspected of criminalizing code. Incidentally, he is not the first person to act anonymously as anonymity has been part of the 'tradition' in crypto coding. The privacy app developers are considered important for their craft as the privacy issue has often affected the functioning and 'credibility' of cryptocurrencies.

Those who are getting concerned about the arrest point out that Tornado Cash or TORN is an autonomous system and arresting someone who has written a code but does not have anything to do with the misuse of the system is going too far. But there is no doubt that the arrest citing Tornado Cash has raised serious questions about the risk and vulnerability of the crypto mixer developers.