Jimmy Fallon (Photo: Getty Images Israel) (Photo: Getty Images Israel)
Addresses and transactions of crypto wallets belonging to various crypto-invested celebrities were partially exposed this week by an anonymous user acting as a troll.
Affected wallets include those controlled by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, TV host Jimmy Fallon, clothing brand Puma, as well as a wallet created for donations to Ukraine. Prominent crypto figures such as the artist Biffle and other mainstream celebrities such as the comedian Dave Chappelle have received ether (ETH).
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) – the US government’s watchdog in the field – approved the disclosure of Tornado Cash, prohibiting individuals and entities in the US from interacting or transacting with the privacy tool. They warned every “American including anyone on US soil as well as any American citizen abroad”.
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Tornado Cash is a mixer, a protocol designed to collect funds in an effort to obscure the source of any given transaction. US officials claimed that a significant number of funds flowing through the mixer were related to criminal activities, such as North Korea’s proceeds from hacking various crypto exchanges and services.
Because Tornado Cash is a sanctioned entity, people in the US will likely be legally required to block incoming transactions from its wallets. OFAC rules require people in the US to freeze any transactions or funds sent from Tornado Cash. It is not possible to block an incoming transfer on the chain, so it is likely that exchanges and other parties will have to block the addresses. This may not be easy for celebrities and businesses with public wallets that are not operated by an exchange or similar type of business.
The idea to send 0.1 ETH to celebrity wallets appears to have originated on Twitter in a second post by user Depression2019, who has since retweeted screenshots of the chain transactions. The open nature of crypto is meant to cut out middlemen, unlike the traditional financial sector which would use banks and other financial institutions to act as gatekeepers against such transactions.
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