Tornado Cash (TORN) Just Scored a Major Win Against the U.S. Government

U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman (Western District of Texas) has issued a permanent injunction against the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), blocking it from reinstating sanctions on crypto mixer Tornado Cash. The ruling, which follows a Fifth Circuit decision weakening the government’s case, is a major win for DeFi and open-source developers.

The judge’s decision, dated April 29, 2025, strikes down OFAC’s original August 2022 designation of Tornado Cash as a Specially Designated National (SDN).

The court ruled that Tornado Cash’s smart contracts are not “property” under U.S. law, making them ineligible for sanctions.

It also recognized that the case was not moot despite OFAC’s later decision to delist Tornado Cash in March.

The plaintiffs, led by Joseph Van Loon and backed by Coinbase’s legal team, argued that treating immutable open-source code as sanctionable property overstepped OFAC’s authority.

The ruling has direct implications for the broader crypto sector, especially in the wake of recent overreaching regulatory moves.

The ruling comes a month after Tornado Cash’s main developer, Alexey Pertsev, was released from Dutch prison.

TORN Price Reacts with Modest Gain

The market reacted, though cautiously, to the news. Tornado Cash’s native token, TORN, has seen a decent gain after the U.S. District Court judge ruled against the Treasury.

As per CoinGecko data, the privacy token is trading at $7.8, a 6% increase in the last 24 hours.

While the optimism is evident, the broader DeFi sector is still processing the full weight of this ruling and what it signifies for the future of decentralized protocols.

The message is clear: open-source protocols are not up for grabs in the realm of hasty regulation.