The US Treasury Division has blacklisted Twister Money on the accusation that the platform helped unhealthy actors harvest over $7 billion in cryptocurrencies.
Americans will be unable to make use of the Twister Money mixer protocol as a result of US legislation enforcement companies’ latest crackdown on the cryptocurrency business. The authorities thought-about Twister Money a risk to the nation’s nationwide safety and positioned the platform on blocked entities, making it unlawful to ship/obtain cash through Twister Money.
The volatility of cryptocurrencies and the business’s potential function in cybercrimes have been a reason behind concern amongst US regulators/lawmakers.
The undersecretary for terrorism and monetary intelligence, Brin Nelson, acknowledged that Twister Money repeatedly bought concerned in laundering funds for cybercriminals regardless of “public assurance.”
It’s price noting that the State-backed North Korean Lazarus Group was blamed for stealing 1.7 billion price of cryptocurrencies from completely different exchanges.
The Treasury Division claims that the platform laundered over $455 million in cryptocurrencies in 2022 through Lazarus Group, whereas total, $7 billion have been laundered by Lazarus and different cybercrime teams.
One other cryptocurrency trade beneath the radar of US authorities and could also be dealing with blacklisting is Kraken.
What’s Twister Money?
Twister Money is a decentralized mixer protocol (sensible contract) launched in 2019. It’s used to hold out non-public transactions on Ethereum. The platform accepts mixes, and swimming pools cryptocurrency from completely different senders to make sure most privateness and obscure audit path. These crypto mixers mix a number of streams of transactions to cover the funds’ origin and vacation spot
GitHub Removes Twister Money Co-founder
Inside hours after the US authorities blacklisted Twister Money, actions have been taken in opposition to the platform, and all web sites and accounts linked to it have been faraway from the web.
Microsoft-owned GitHub additionally deleted the account of one of many co-founders of Twister Money, Roman Semenov. GitHub beforehand hosted code associated to the mixer. When checked, the co-founder’s accounts returned a “Web page Not Discovered” error, and emails additionally bounced again with the next message:
 “The e-mail account that you just tried to achieve is disabled.”
In keeping with a GitHub spokesperson, as per commerce legal guidelines, they’re required to limit entities/prospects declared Specifically Designated Nationals (SDNs) or who’ve been blocked by authorities from utilizing GitHub.
The spokesperson additional added that they should examine authorities sanctions recurrently to make sure such entities don’t impression different customers. However, Semenov later tweeted about his account’s blocking on GitHub stating the next:
Learn Associated Information
- German Authorities Warn Towards Utilizing Kaspersky Merchandise
- US Warns Companies About North Korean Hackers Posing as IT Staff
- US Provides Kaspersky to Record of Companies Posing Risk to Nationwide Safety
- GitHub Blocks Accounts of Two Massive Russian Banks Amid US Sanctions
- LAZARUS APT Utilizing TraderTraitor Malware to Goal Blockchain Orgs, Customers
