{"id":68473,"date":"2022-10-12T14:45:24","date_gmt":"2022-10-12T11:45:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=68473"},"modified":"2025-09-07T14:17:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T11:17:11","slug":"elliptic-assesses-risks-of-popular-cryptocurrency-mixers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/elliptic-assesses-risks-of-popular-cryptocurrency-mixers\/","title":{"rendered":"Elliptic assesses risks of popular cryptocurrency mixers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Elliptic experts <a href=\\\"https:\/\/www.elliptic.co\/resources\/tornado-cash-alternatives\\\">analyzed<\/a> six popular Ethereum-based cryptocurrency mixers that are mentioned as potential alternatives to the U.S.-sanctioned Tornado Cash.<\/p>\n<p>The review includes services RAILGUN, Buccaneer V3, White Ethereum, 0xTIP, Messier 87 Black Hole, and Cyclone Protocol. According to the analysts, the studied protocols together processed transactions totaling more than $41.5 million \u2014 0.6% of the funds mixed by Tornado Cash.<\/p>\n<p>Of these, $40,000 (0.1%) were obtained from DeFi-related thefts. This amount includes $37,000 of the $270,000 stolen during the June attack on the xWIN Finance protocol. Another $100,000 came directly from Tornado Cash, a small portion of these funds having been sent after sanctions were imposed.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\\\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\\\">\n<p>\\&#8221;Current figures indicate limited use of the examined services for criminal purposes at this stage,\\&#8221; Elliptic noted.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The most popular assets for mixing are ETH, BNB, Wrapped ETH, and USDT. However, this data does not include Polygon-based assets.<\/p>\n<p>Many protocols are based on &#8216;improved&#8217; forks of the Tornado Cash smart contract, though their small liquidity pools make large-scale mixing less feasible, the researchers added.<\/p>\n<p>The highest mixing limits are with Cyclone Protocol (100 ETH\/100,000 USDT) and RAILGUN (unlimited) \u2014 they account for more than three-quarters of the total funds processed by the studied protocols.<\/p>\n<p>An internal Elliptic analysis identified Cyclone Protocol as the riskiest among today\u2019s alternatives to Tornado Cash. The researchers\u2019 concerns include:<\/p>\n<ul class=\\\"wp-block-list\\\">\n<li>high transaction limits;<\/li>\n<li>relatively large liquidity pools;<\/li>\n<li>ability to mix Tornado Cash tokens;<\/li>\n<li>documented use for laundering some proceeds from DeFi exploits;<\/li>\n<li>large volume of funds processed;<\/li>\n<li>anonymity and inactivity of the development team.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\\&#8221;A medium-high risk rating was assigned to Buccaneer V3, and throughout development no money-laundering issues were identified. BV3 uses a &#8216;lure mode&#8217; that displays fake and changing BUCC balances in wallet-provider interfaces as an additional obfuscation technique. The main mitigating factor for BV3 is the use of technology that is still in testing.\\&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The remaining four protocols also have mitigating factors that, according to Elliptic, could prevent widespread illicit use:<\/p>\n<ul class=\\\"wp-block-list\\\">\n<li>RAILGUN generates compliance reports and has a partially public development team.<\/li>\n<li>Messier 87 says it is ready to provide the necessary reports on demand to authorities.<\/li>\n<li>White Ethereum and 0xTIP tackle low mixing limits and small liquidity pools respectively, making them not a viable replacement for Tornado Cash at present.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure class=\\\"wp-block-image size-large\\\"><img loading=\\\"lazy\\\" decoding=\\\"async\\\" width=\\\"1024\\\" height=\\\"568\\\" src=\\\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Risk-Rating-1024x568.png\\\" alt=\\\"Elliptic assesses risks of popular cryptocurrency mixers\\\" class=\\\"wp-image-187523\\\" srcset=\\\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Risk-Rating-1024x568.png 1024w, https:\/\/u1f987.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Risk-Rating-300x166.png 300w, https:\/\/u1f987.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Risk-Rating-768x426.png 768w, https:\/\/u1f987.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Risk-Rating-1536x852.png 1536w, https:\/\/u1f987.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Risk-Rating-2048x1135.png 2048w\\\" sizes=\\\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\\\" \/><figcaption>Risk matrix. Data: Elliptic.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\\n<\/p>\n<p>On August 8, <span data-descr=\\\"Office of Foreign Assets Control of the U.S. Department of the Treasury\\\" class=\\\"old_tooltip\\\">OFAC<\/span> placed <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/us-sanctions-tornado-cash-the-ethereum-mixer\">sanctions<\/a> on the Tornado Cash mixer. The agency suspects the platform of laundering around $7 billion since 2017. More than $455 million of those funds were linked to North Korean hackers.<\/p>\n<p>Within a month of the sanctions, Tornado Cash liquidity pools shrank by about 60%, reducing its potential to anonymize large-scale money-laundering schemes.<\/p>\n<p>Follow ForkLog&#8217;s Bitcoin news on our <a href=\\\"https:\/\/telegram.me\/forklog\\\" target=\\\"_blank\\\" rel=\\\"nofollow noopener\\\">Telegram<\/a> \u2014 cryptocurrency news, prices and analysis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Elliptic experts analyzed six popular Ethereum-based cryptocurrency mixers that are cited as potential alternatives to Tornado Cash.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":68474,"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":[1154,1267,1535,1256,1314],"class_list":["post-68473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-crimes","tag-cryptocurrency-trading","tag-elliptic","tag-privacy-and-personal-data","tag-tornado-cash"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"18","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68473","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=68473"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68475,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68473\/revisions\/68475"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}