US Treasury Delists Tornado Cash, But Coinbase Paul Grewal Says Case Must Go On

Following a court decision in Tornado Cash’s favor, the Treasury officially took the project and its related smart contract addresses off the list, according to a March 21 statement.

The department says that the case should be considered over, stating that the issue has been resolved. It argued that courts must review whether they still have the authority to continue with a case when the main issue has been addressed.

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However, Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s $2.17B chief legal officer, stated in a March 23 post on X that the government could not simply drop the case just because it reversed its decision.

Grewal referred to a legal rule that says when a defendant voluntarily stops the behavior being challenged, a case only becomes irrelevant if it is clear the behavior will not happen again.

To support his point, he mentioned a 2024 Supreme Court ruling involving Yonas Fikre, a US citizen who had been added to the No Fly List. The court decided his case was still valid, even though he was removed from the list, because there was no clear promise that it would not happen again.

Grewal said the same applies to Tornado Cash. Although it is no longer on the Treasury’s sanctions list, there is no promise that it will not be added again later. That lack of clarity, he argued, means the case should not be dismissed.

Meanwhile, a UK court denied James Howells’ appeal to search a landfill for his lost hard drive holding 8,000 Bitcoin. What did Howells say about it? Read the full story.