Tornado Cash Moves to MegaETH Test Network Following Lifting of U.S. Sanctions

The decentralized privacy protocol, Tornado Cash, has been successfully integrated into the recently launched MegaETH public testnet after the lifting of sanctions against the protocol.

As reported by The Block, the crypto privacy solution, Tornado Cash, has been adapted to the MegaETH testnet by developer Gunboats, who dubbed it ETHTornado. The developer mentioned that the porting process was straightforward and didn't require any code modifications.

"I thought, perhaps someone should attempt to deploy [Tornado Cash] on the most popular platform currently... there's no need to alter the code, and that's truly advantageous," stated developer Gunboats.

Gunboats took the initiative to port the protocol after the U.S. Treasury Department lifted sanctions on Tornado Cash, making it legal for American citizens to use the protocol again. These sanctions were initially imposed in August 2022 when the government accused Tornado Cash of aiding money laundering activities, including transactions linked to North Korea's Lazarus Group.

Despite the U.S. Treasury no longer sanctioning Tornado Cash wallets, one user pointed out that certain projects might still refuse to distribute airdrops to those wallets.

"some airdrops continue to exclude any address that interacted with tornado / received tainted eth.."

Addressing legal concerns about this development, Gunboats downplayed potential risks and voiced support for Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm, who is currently facing legal issues due to his involvement in Tornado Cash. "Free Roman Storm," Gunboats stated. However, he conceded that ETHTornado has yet to gain significant traction, citing the absence of a user-friendly interface as a hindrance.

The Ethereum (ETH) scaling solution, MegaETH, was launched on March 21, gaining attention for its ability to process 20,000 transactions per second with 10 millisecond blocktimes.

Like conventional layer 2s, MegaETH offloads transaction processing from the Ethereum main network while still utilizing it for security. What sets MegaETH apart is its use of alternative data availability solutions, such as EigenDA, and specialized sequencers that enable multiple transactions to be processed simultaneously.

Aside from the Tornado Cash port, trading platforms GTE and Infinex are already operational on the MegaETH testnet.