Crypto mixer Tornado Cash once again finds itself as the nexus of stolen tokens from a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, as PeckShield has spotted $500,000 of dai DAI$1.0003 moving through its pipes.
Crypto mixers are protocols that obscure the destination of tokens making them harder to track.
In August 2021, crypto fundraising platform DAO Maker (not related to Maker DAO) suffered a hack that resulted in the loss of $7 million in various stablecoins and ether ETH$2,710.89.
Immediately after the 2021 hack, on-chain data shows the funds were sent to two wallets.
Tornado Cash’s frequent nexus to stolen funds triggered a debate if its complicit in money laundering, with its founder saying that the protocol isn’t controlled by any single entity and is designed to be unstoppable.
In August, the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Tornado Cash prohibiting all U.S. persons and entities from interacting with the protocol.
Separately, Coinbase (COIN) is sponsoring a lawsuit to try to get the protocol removed from OFAC’s list.