{"id":66416,"date":"2022-08-29T12:55:34","date_gmt":"2022-08-29T09:55:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=66416"},"modified":"2025-09-07T01:12:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T22:12:14","slug":"elliptic-tornado-cash-was-a-key-service-for-nft-scammers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/elliptic-tornado-cash-was-a-key-service-for-nft-scammers\/","title":{"rendered":"Elliptic: Tornado Cash Was a Key Service for NFT Scammers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S.-sanctioned cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash was a preferred instrument for laundering funds obtained from fraud involving <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/what-are-nfts\">NFT<\/a>. According to a report by analytics firm Elliptic.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\ud83d\udea8Over $100 million worth of NFTs were publicly reported as stolen through scams between July 2021 and July 2022, netting perpetrators $300,000 per scam on average. <br \/>Head to <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/u6iPLjXgpR\">https:\/\/t.co\/u6iPLjXgpR<\/a> to read our NFTs and Financial Crime Report.<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/nft?src=hash&#038;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#nft<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/crypto?src=hash&#038;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#crypto<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/aml?src=hash&#038;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#aml<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Elliptic (@elliptic) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elliptic\/status\/1562468024119992320?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 24, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>According to them, <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/what-is-the-tornado-cash-mixer-and-why-was-it-sanctioned\">mixer service<\/a> was a source of crypto assets totaling $137.6 million, processed by NFT marketplaces. With its help, 52% of illicit NFT-related proceeds were laundered.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cThe widespread use of Tornado Cash for NFTs-related fraud underscores the need for effective oversight by NFT platforms,\u201d the analysts added.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Tornado Cash did not comment on the information.<\/p>\n<p>According to Elliptic, overall since 2017, criminals have laundered more than $8 million through NFT marketplaces, representing 0.02% of total trading volume.<\/p>\n<p>In the same period, crypto mixers processed $328.6 million (0.81%) related to the non-fungible token market. Part of this sum may reflect proceeds from illicit activity.<\/p>\n<p>From July 2021 to July 2022, tokens worth over $100 million were stolen.<\/p>\n<p>As reported by <span data-descr=\"Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)\" class=\"old_tooltip\">OFAC<\/span> on August 8, the cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash was added to the sanctions list on suspicion of laundering <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/us-sanctions-tornado-cash-the-ethereum-mixer\">$7 billion in cryptocurrency<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>On August 12, Dutch authorities <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/in-amsterdam-authorities-arrest-alleged-tornado-cash-developer\">arrested<\/a> the developer of the service, Alexey Pertsev. Authorities suspect him of involvement in laundering funds and concealing criminal financial flows.<\/p>\n<p>Last week Celsius Network said in a lawsuit that its former head of capital management at KeyFi and its founder Jason Stone <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/celsius-files-lawsuits-against-defi-contractor-keyfi-and-crypto-custodian-prime-trust\">stole assets worth millions of dollars<\/a>, including by converting them into hundreds of NFTs and using Tornado Cash.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/telegram.me\/forklog\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Telegram<\/a> \u2014 Read ForkLog&#8217;s Bitcoin news on our Telegram \u2014 cryptocurrency news, prices and analysis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash was a preferred instrument for laundering funds obtained from NFT fraud, according to Elliptic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":66417,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1154,1535,1213,1314],"class_list":["post-66416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-crimes","tag-elliptic","tag-nft","tag-tornado-cash"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"22","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66416"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66418,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66416\/revisions\/66418"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}