Tornado Cash repositories are about to be unlocked on GitHub

The web service for hosting IT projects has partially unlocked Tornado Cash on its platform – the cryptocurrency mixer code is available for reading.

Ethereum developer Preston Van Loon tweeted that the code is readable, but this means that GitHub has not yet regained full access to the repository. However, according to Van Loon, this is a significant improvement over the full lockdown:

“I continue to urge GitHub to completely reverse all actions taken in recent weeks and return the repositories to their previous status.”

According to GitHub, the latest updates to the Tornado Cash repositories were made on August 22, shortly after Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Semenov’s account was banned from the platform.

The unlock was influenced by a statement from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), in which the regulator said that US residents would not violate sanctions if they copied the mixer code or posted it on the Internet. OFAC also noted that US citizens will not be banned from visiting the Tornado Cash website if it becomes available online again.

Apparently, the hype in the media and the cryptocurrency community around the case helped destigmatize Tornado Cash. However, this does not yet mean that sanctions will be lifted from the relevant Ethereum addresses and the service itself in the near future.

In late August, Johns Hopkins University computer science professor Mathew Green re-uploaded the Tornado Cash cryptocurrency mixing service code to GitHub, stating that the code should not be included as it would harm the scientific and technical community.