Someone Is Trolling Celebs by Sending ETH from Tornado Cash

An anonymous user sent a slew of Tornado Cash transactions to high-profile Ethereum addresses on Tuesday in what appears to be a troll implicating them in a potential regulatory mess. Prominent crypto figures like Beeple and more mainstream celebrities like Dave Chappelle are also receiving the ETH. The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Asset Control - a watchdog for the federal government - sanctioned Tornado Cash on Monday, prohibiting U.S. persons and entities from interacting or transacting with the privacy tool. A U.S. person includes anyone on U.S. soil as well as any American citizen abroad. Tornado Cash is a mixer, a protocol designed to pool funds in an effort to obfuscate the origin of any given transaction. U.S. officials alleged that a significant number of funds flowing through the mixer were tied to criminal activities, such as North Korea's proceeds from hacking various crypto exchanges and services. The idea to send 0.1 ETH to celebrity wallets appears to have originated on Twitter in a Monday post by user Depression2019, who has since retweeted screengrabs from the on-chain transactions. Because Tornado Cash is a sanctioned entity, U.S. persons would likely be under a legal obligation to block incoming transactions from its wallets. OFAC rules mandate that U.S. persons freeze any transactions or funds sent from Tornado Cash.