The six plaintiffs-appellants are users of Tornado Cash. They argue that Tornado Cash’s inclusion on the SDN list exceeded OFAC’s statutory authority. The district court disagreed, granting summary judgment to the Department and finding Tornado Cash subject to OFAC’s sanctioning authority. Van Loon and the other plaintiffs appealed, making the same principal argument here—that Tornado Cash’s open-source, self-executing software is not sanctionable under the Act (as opposed to the rogue persons and entities who abuse it). OFAC’s concerns with illicit foreign actors laundering funds are undeniably legitimate. Perhaps Congress will update IEEPA, enacted during the Carter Administration, to target modern technologies like crypto-mixing software. Until then, we hold that Tornado Cash’s immutable smart contracts (the lines of privacy-enabling software code) are not the “property” of a foreign national or entity, meaning (1) they cannot be blocked under IEEPA, and (2) OFAC overstepped its congressionally defined authority.
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