Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW.

It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world.

What's going on, guys? It is Thursday, August 24th, and today we are talking about tornado cash and some big announcements of arrests yesterday.

Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying the breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord.

You can find a link

of the show notes or go to bit.ly slash breakdown pod. Well, friends, a bit of a big announcement

yesterday. On Wednesday, the Justice Department unsealed charges against two tornado

cash co-founders. Roman Storm, who lives in Washington State, has been arrested, and Roman

Seminoff, a Russian citizen,

remains at large, and is believed to be currently residing in Dubai. In addition to the charges,

Seminoff has been added to the Office of Foreign Asset Control specially designated nationals list,

which is the list of sanctioned companies and individuals. The pair are charged with conspiracy

to commit money laundering, conspiracy to

commit sanctions violations, and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business.

A third co-founder, Alexei Perzev, you will remember, was arrested in the Netherlands in

August of last year, and Perzzev is currently awaiting trial on money laundering charges from

home detention after spending over six months in jail.

OFAC said in a statement that, quote,

Tornado Cash has been used to launder funds for criminal actors since its creation in 2019,

including to obfuscate hundreds of millions of dollars in virtual currency stolen by Lazarus Group hackers.

Alongside Seminoff being personally added to the sanctions list,

eight Ethereum wallet addresses were identified

...