Binance announced plans to delist Tornado Cash’s native token, TORN, on Nov. 27, closely coinciding with massive losses for the coin.
The exchange announced plans to delist TORN on Nov. 27 at 6:00 PM UTC. This coincided with a sudden loss in value for the asset, which dropped from $3.90 to as low as $1.94 in just one hour. As of 9:00 PM UTC on Nov. 27, TORN was valued at $1.73, representing a 55.6% loss since the initial drop and a 53.2% loss over 24 hours.
Binance said it would begin to delist and halt trading for TORN starting on Dec. 7 at 3:00 PM UTC. It added that it will stop crediting deposits on Dec. 8 and disable withdrawals after March 7, 2024.
The announcement named three other assets that will be delisted on the same schedule: BitShares (BTS), PERL.eco (PERL), and Waltonchain (WTC). Each coin also saw sudden losses after Binance announced the delistings.
Tornado Cash was sanctioned last year
Binance did not say why it intends to delist Tornado Cash but said that it reviews assets periodically and considers various factors.
Tornado Cash was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury in August 2022 for its use in money laundering schemes, including those by North Korean cybercrime groups. In August 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice charged the platform’s co-founders, Roman Storm and Roman Semenov, with conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to commit sanctions violations, and other financial crimes.
Though the Treasury did not sanction the TORN token itself, it sanctioned specific addresses associated with the project. Those developments may have raised issues in one part of Binance’s review, which considers “evidence of unethical/fraudulent conduct or negligence.”
Despite Binance’s lack of support for Tornado Cash, other industry members have asserted that Tornado Cash has legitimate privacy applications and have lobbied for the Treasury to modify the sanctions. Notably, The Blockchain Association submitted a new filing in an ongoing case around the matter on Nov. 20.
