Fifth Circuit Rules that U.S. Sanctions Against Tornado Cash are Unlawful

Tornado Cash Sanctions Overturned by U.S. Appeals Court

U.S. sanctions against Tornado Cash, a service that anonymizes crypto transactions, must be abandoned, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The decision answers a controversial privacy debate on whether the government — via a sanctions list maintained by the U.S. Treasury Department — has a right to target the technology because it’s associated with criminals. The ruling reversed a district court’s August ruling that had sided with the government’s pursuit of what it had characterized as a “notorious” crypto-mixing service.

“Tornado Cash’s immutable smart contracts (the lines of privacy-enabling software code) are not the ‘property’ of a foreign national or entity,” according to a U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruling, so they can’t be blocked under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, and the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control “overstepped its congressionally defined authority” when it did so.

Does The SEC Even Need An FCPA Unit?

Given that the SEC’s FCPA Unit is only one of five specialized units within the enforcement division, one might think that the FCPA Unit has a heavy workload.

However, based on the SEC’s own enforcement statistics, FCPA enforcement actions comprise a minuscule percentage of its overall enforcement actions.

As highlighted in the below graphic from the SEC’s recent FY2024 Annual Report, FCPA enforcement actions constituted 0% of the SEC’s overall enforcement actions over its past fiscal year. (This number is obviously rounded “down” as the SEC’s did bring two FCPA enforcement actions during its fiscal year (which ends on September 30th a time period different than calendar year 2024 – thus far there have been five FCPA enforcement actions).

Macy’s Missing $154 Million Linked to Highly Touted Metric

A large company like Macy’s typically has controls in place to ensure such a scenario couldn’t occur but it’s unclear if that’s the case in this instance, she added. Macy’s declined to comment on its controls.

The size and duration of the incident also makes it likely that the US Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating or will investigate, said Jim Barratt, a former SEC enforcement accountant and founder of Barratt Consulting Group.

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The disclosure also draws attention to the company as a whole, not just the unnamed employee singled out in the press release, Barratt said. “Accounting entries aren’t made by one person,” he said. “It takes more than one person.”

Crypto leaders push Trump for federal bitcoin reserve

Top cryptocurrency executives and investors are pushing President-elect Donald Trump to create a national stockpile of bitcoin, a move that could more closely tie the little-regulated, volatile industry to the future of the country’s finances.

Trump has publicly expressed broad interest in the idea, though some crypto advocates have urged him to take an even more aggressive step: They want him to acquire tokens worth billions of dollars, then hold them for decades in the hopes they will skyrocket in value and help pay down the national debt.

Economists and fiscal experts say the proposal carries significant risks: Crypto prices can fluctuate wildly, potentially putting taxpayer dollars at risk if the government acquires bitcoin at its current level — near record highs — and its value ultimately falls. They also say a strategic reserve would primarily benefit existing bitcoin owners, who could profit immensely if Trump’s actions send prices soaring and they opt to sell.

“There’s just no discernible logic to do it,” said Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “I get why the crypto investor would love it. Other than the crypto investor, I don’t see the value, particularly if taxpayers have to ante up.”

Trump’s budget plans push US government lawyers to private sector

Rank-and-file attorneys in the federal government fear major budget cuts when President-elect Donald Trump assumes office and are hunting for private-sector jobs in unusually high numbers, five legal recruiters told Reuters.

Each new administration sparks an exodus of political appointees and other senior legal officials, but the recruiters said they are also hearing from far more lower-level, career government lawyers this year.

“It absolutely feels different than the transition to the first Trump administration,” said Rachel Nonaka, a former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission attorney-turned-recruiter in Washington.

Another Washington headhunter, Dan Binstock, said government attorneys have approached his firm Garrison at five times the normal post-election rate, and far more of them are career civil servants.

“The level of uncertainty is like nothing we’ve seen,” said Binstock, who has been a recruiter for 20 years.

I accidentally threw away my boyfriend’s £569MILLION Bitcoin fortune. It wasn’t my fault, but I hope he finds it… because it will finally shut him up!

A woman has revealed how she accidentally threw away the ‘key’ to her boyfriend’s £569million Bitcoin fortune, as he fights for the right to search a huge landfill in an attempt to find it.

Halfina Eddy-Evans, speaking for the first time about her ex-boyfriend James Howells’ cyber nightmare, admitted taking the hard drive to the tip in Wales but claims she did so at his request.

Howells claims he mined the Bitcoin himself in 2009 and then forgot about it. But after discovering the 8,000 coins are now worth around £569m he is fighting for the right to search the landfill run by Newport Council.

Halfina said she took the hard drive containing the ‘key’ to the tip nine to ten years ago. The couple have since split up.

She said: ‘I hope he finds it, not that I want a penny of his money, but it will shut him up!’