US Imposes Sanctions for the First Time on a Bitcoin Mixer for Money Laundering » Crypto Insiders

Blockchain and cryptocurrency are still hot topics† Lately many people have been seeing that they are exclusively for criminals, so it took a while before the regulations were taken seriously, but that has changed a lot now. right Now Even the US government is imposing the first sanctions on so-called bitcoin (BTC) blends.

Lazarus Hacker Group

This was announced by the US Treasury. More precisely, it is Blender.io, not to be confused with the 3D drawing program Blender. Mixer has been banned for helping the famous North Korean hacker Lazarus Group launder money of bitcoins.

Lazarus is famous for a large number of hacks, which nowadays make extensive use of cryptocurrencies. The group is practically state-owned, and therefore it carries out attacks coordinated by the government. Among other things, the biggest hack on Ethereum comes from Lazarus and Cryptocurrency will be used to fund the country’s nuclear weapons program.

The blender was used by North Korea to launder more than $20.5 million. money came from The Axi Infinity Hack From the end of March. Four Lazarus wallet addresses that were used in the hack have been discovered.

First-ever penalties for a cryptocurrency mixer

Cryptocurrencies are two-sided for governments. On the one hand, they like to use technology. For many cryptocurrencies, all transactions are public, which means that the crime is relatively easy to solve. On the other hand, they do not want you to bypass fiat currency and engage in illegal activities.

So mixers don’t help with these goals, ensuring that you can handle coding almost invisibly. Then it is no longer possible to determine whether you are doing criminal things or not. However, the threshold for regulating mixers is still high. It might indicate that you shouldn’t have any privacy. Therefore, blenders are no longer completely illegal in many countries.

huhThe Ministry of Finance confirms that the use of blenders by Americans is also prohibited, But If you have special permission to do so. In all, more than 50% of the addresses in the mixer have been blocked.

However, mixers were previously subject to other procedures, including fines. Europol and Dutch FIOD for them Bestmixer.io big mixer until completely taken from the air. This appears to have been partially active in the Netherlands.