Tornado Cash is a decentralized anonymity service built on the Ethereum blockchain. It enables users to obscure wallet activity, offering advanced financial anonymity.
Unlike traditional mixers, Tornado Cash uses smart contracts that are self-executing and trustless, ensuring that users retain complete custody of their funds at all times. This decentralized design brings transparency and removes any central point of failure or censorship.
The core of Tornado Cash lies in privacy-preserving proofs, which allow participants to verify without disclosing specific deposit information. This ensures unlinkability between the deposit and the withdrawal.
Thanks to its robust security, Tornado.cash quickly gained popularity by those seeking private fund movements. It’s used for protecting wallet privacy, among other legitimate needs.
However, this tool has also attracted legal attention from governments. In 2022, the U.S. Treasury’s OFAC restricted the tornado.cash use of Tornado.cash, citing allegations of unauthorized use. Still, the protocol remains active since its smart contracts are permanently deployed and cannot be taken offline.
Defenders believe that Tornado.cash is a non-judgmental protocol, much like the internet itself — and that tools should not be blamed, even if some actors misuse them.
Use cases for Tornado mixer include:
Separating personal and public wallets
Protecting whistleblowers
Using Ethereum without exposing history
As governments around the world push for more monitoring, the demand for tools like Tornado.cash continues to rise. The future of decentralized privacy hinges on whether open-source technology will be protected or suppressed.
Whether you're a privacy advocate or just someone looking to keep your activity private, Tornado Cash remains a powerful tool in the world of decentralized privacy.