Major Crypto Sanctions of 2022

So, the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and similar agencies in other countries use sanctions to target threats to national security, like countries and individuals. Hydra was the biggest darknet marketplace out there until German authorities took down its servers in April 2022, right when OFAC put sanctions on it, which basically ended its operation. Based in Russia, Hydra sold drugs and provided money laundering options for cybercriminals, including those involved in ransomware. Then there's Garantex, a Russian crypto exchange flagged for money laundering like Hydra. But Garantex is still up and running despite being sanctioned. Tornado Cash, the decentralized mixing service on Ethereum, got hit with sanctions in August 2022 (and again in November) since it was linked to money laundering, mostly with funds from hacks by North Korean cybercriminals. It’s interesting because Tornado Cash is the only DeFi service that’s been sanctioned by OFAC; all the other ones were centralized or personal wallets. Being a DeFi protocol makes it tricky to shut down Tornado Cash like a centralized service. That raises some questions about how effective these sanctions really are.