Daily Flash | Tornado Cash And All Related ETH Addresses Blacklisted By US Treasury, Ethereum Options Open Interest Exceeds Bitcoin First Time In History Ahead of Merge

Today's Headline - Crypto Mixer Tornado Cash blacklisted by Treasury Department

The U.S. Treasury Department has blacklisted crypto mixer Tornado Cash and all of its Ethereum addresses, effectively barring all Americans from interacting with the privacy service.

Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson said in a statement,

“Despite public assurances otherwise, Tornado Cash has repeatedly failed to impose effective controls designed to stop it from laundering funds for malicious cyber actors on a regular basis and without basic measures to address its risks.”

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), a watchdog agency tasked with preventing sanctions violations, on Monday added Tornado Cash to its Specially Designated Nationals list, a running tally of blacklisted people, entities and cryptocurrency addresses.

According to the Treasury Department, Tornado Cash has been a key tool for the Lazarus Group, a North Korean hacking group tied to the $625 million March hack of Axie Infinity’s Ronin Network.

The Treasury Department said,

“Tornado Cash has been the go-to mixer for cybercriminals looking to launder the proceeds of crime, as well as helping to enable hackers, including those currently under U.S. sanctions, to launder the proceeds of their cybercrimes by covering up the origin and transfer of this illicit virtual currency. Since its creation back in 2019, Tornado Cash has reportedly laundered more than $7 billion worth of virtual currency.”

Coindesk reports that according to data from blockchain analytics firm Nansen, ether (ETH) deposits on Tornado Cash spiked after Ronin was hacked earlier this year. The average amount of ETH deposited on Tornado Cash eclipsed 220,000 in May and June 2022. This total was worth $220 billion to $660 billion during that range, data from CoinGecko shows. Overall, some 18% of the total amount of ETH flowing through Tornado Cash in recent months – 167,400 ETH – came from the Ronin hack.

Chart of the Day - BTC vs. ETH Options Open Interest: Glassnode report

As of this writing,
Bitcoin (BTC) is changing hands at around $23,750, up 2.22% in the past 24 hours,
while Ether (ETH) is trading at $1,766, or up 3.5% during the same period.
Major altcoins are also following similar patterns, with Polkadot (DOT) +4.43% and Cosmos (ATOM) +3.85% continuing their respective stellar gains since Monday, while Cardano (ADA) is up by 0.32%, Solana (SOL) +1.56%, and Avalanche (AVAX) +0.36%.

Notable gainers include:
Venus (VENUS) at $9.89 (+51.76%),
Ren (REN) at $0.207 (+34.67%),
Celsius Network (CEL) at $1.88 (+30.23%).

Notable losers include:
Steem Dollars (SBD) at $2.90 (-9.58%),
Unibright (UBT) at $0.211 (-8.22%),
Tellor (TRB) at $30.62 (-7.66%).

On Monday, the correlations between BTC and the three indexes remain above 0.60, indicating a strong relationship between BTC price movements and stocks. Market participants are now anticipating the Aug. 10 Consumer Price Index (CPI) print to see if U.S. inflation had set a peak.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.09%. The Nasdaq Composite Index, meanwhile, fell 0.10% and the S&P 500 slipped 0.12%.

From 5 a.m. to noon (UTC), BTC’s hourly chart showed significant trading activity and rose to a height of 4.65% to over $24,000, but failed to reach the weekly resistance level at $24,300. It’s interesting to note that BTC is currently sandwiched between the 20-day EMA ($22,927) and the weekly resistance level, which may imply a break above, or below may be imminent.

The price of ETH continues to surge following the reveal that Ethereum developers are now confident that the merge will take place on or around September 19.

On Monday, Ether (ETH) followed a similar pattern to BTC, hitting a two-month high above $1,800 earlier in the day before taking a foothold slightly below this level. It’s also interesting to note that the weekly resistance level sits at $1,800.42, which solidifies its significance as ETH failed to sustain above the threshold during intraday trading.

According to “The Week On-Chain” released on Aug. 8. by Glassnode,

“Both futures and options market are in backwardation after September, suggesting traders are expecting the Merge to be a 'buy the rumor, sell the news' style event, and have positioned accordingly.”

Influencer of the Day - Ethereum Name Service founder reflects as 2 million registration mark nears: Cointelegraph report

The Ethereum Name Service (ENS) surpassed 1.8 million registrations at the end of July 2022. In that month alone, 378,000 .eth domains were registered, generating a monthly record of 5,400 Ether (ETH) in revenue.

ENS is similar to the original Domain Name Service (DNS) in that it uses dot-separated hierarchical names, commonly known as domains, with the owner of a domain controlling both it and any subdomains. An ENS domain is effectively a nonfungible token (NFT) that serves as an ETH wallet address, a cryptographic hash or a website URL.

Nick Johnson, the founder and lead developer of ENS, outlined the original goal of the project and its subsequent success since inception in correspondence with Cointelegraph,

“Most people today register ENS names because they serve as their ‘decentralized profile’ — they let people identify themselves with a name, profile picture, social media handles etc., in a way that works across many apps and platforms.”

Johnson admitted that the team did not realize how valuable the extensibility of the ENS would become as more users began to mint .eth domains, as the ENS founder says,
“Any time there is a scarce resource, people will look for ways to capitalize on it, and namespaces are no different. Certainly we were aware from day one that this would likely happen, and we tried to structure the service to prioritize end-users over speculators.”

Buzzes of Yesterday - #Galaxy Digital reports $554M loss in Q2, #Marathon Digital reports $191M loss in Q2

Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital eyeing more M&A despite reporting $554 million loss

Argo Blockchain keeps cashing out BTC to pay the debt to Galaxy Digital

Bitcoin miner Marathon reports second-quarter net loss of $191.6 million

Slope pleads with hackers to return stolen assets in exchange for $450,000

Crypto lending platform Hodlnaut suspends services due to liquidity crisis

Consumer Group Demands Snoop Dogg, Paris Hilton, Other Celebs Disclose NFT Connections

Moonbirds ruffles some holders' feathers with abrupt copyright switch

UK Parliamentary Group Opens Inquiry into Crypto Industry

CFTC Targets Election Betting Platform PredictIt

Author: Gate.io Researcher Peter L.
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