Tornado Cash Ported to MegaETH Testnet Following Sanctions Removal

| | | --- | | Key Points:– Developer Gunboats ported the privacy tool Tornado Cash—now called ETHTornado—to the MegaETH testnet after U.S. sanctions were lifted on its smart contracts.– Some users warned about potential wallet “dusting” with ETHTornado, but the developer dismissed the risk and downplayed legal consequences. |

A developer has ported the privacy-focused crypto tool Tornado Cash to the newly launched MegaETH blockchain testnet, reintroducing private transaction capabilities on the emerging network, The Block reported.

The move follows the recent decision by the U.S. Department of Treasury to lift sanctions on Tornado Cash’s smart contract addresses.

Tornado Cash Revived on MegaETH After Sanctions Lifted

The developer, known as Gunboats, announced the deployment of a modified version called ETHTornado on MegaETH’s public testnet.

Gunboats said the decision was motivated by the Treasury Department’s removal of Tornado Cash addresses from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions list, a move that came after a federal appeals court ruled in January that smart contracts were not “property” of a foreign nation and thus not subject to sanctions under existing law.

ETHTornado contract address. Source: megaexplorer.xyzDespite the court decision, privacy protocols like Tornado Cash remain controversial in crypto circles. The tool was previously sanctioned due to its alleged use by North Korea’s Lazarus Group for laundering stolen funds. Although the ban on smart contracts was lifted, concerns persist among developers and users about the legal and reputational risks of interacting with such tools.

Some community members have raised concerns over the possibility of “wallet dusting,” in which small amounts of crypto are sent to a large number of wallets, potentially implicating unsuspecting users. Gunboats dismissed these worries, arguing that the mechanics of dusting — whether it takes milliseconds or seconds — make little difference if the end result is a wallet being flagged.

MegaETH Testnet Launches with High-Speed Performance

The move coincides with MegaETH’s rapid rise in the blockchain space. Developed by MegaLabs, MegaETH is a high-performance Layer 2 network built on Ethereum’s Rollup architecture. It aims to deliver real-time transaction capabilities comparable to Web2 applications.

According to the project team, the testnet can support up to 20,000 transactions per second, 1.7 gigas/s of computing power, and achieves 10-millisecond block times.

MegaETH recently launched its public testnet and conducted a massive airdrop, distributing testnet ETH to over 190,000 wallets in just 15 seconds. The network plans to introduce advanced features such as parallelization, just-in-time (JIT) compilation, and optimized storage systems to enhance on-chain performance further.

Users interested in exploring the testnet can visit testnet.megaeth.com to interact with applications, claim test ETH, and experiment with MetaMask integration.

| | | --- | | DISCLAIMER: The information on this website is provided as general market commentary and does not constitute investment advice. We encourage you to do your own research before investing. |