DEF Co-Authors New Paper Analyzing Control Under Section 1960

On December 2, 2024, the DeFi Education Fund ("DEF") published a new paper in The International Academy of Financial Crime Litigators  written by DEF's Amanda Tuminelli and Variant’s Daniel Barabander and Jake Chervinsky entitled “Through the Looking Glass: Conceptualizing Control and Analyzing Criminal Liability For Unlicensed Money Transmitting Businesses Under Section 1960.”

The paper takes a deep dive into 8 U.S.C. § 1960, a statute at the center of the Tornado Cash and Samurai Wallet cases, criminalizing the operation of an “unlicensed money transmitting business” and subjecting violators to harsh penalties, in an effort to provide clarity on who exactly the statute exposes to criminal liability.

At a high-level, the main conclusion of the paper is that in order for an entity to fall within the scope of 1960, they must be "money transmitting" — transferring funds on behalf of the public — which requires them to have control over the funds at issue.

Please click here to read the full paper.