OKX CEO Star Xu today responded to public calls from users to refrain from using the exchange, reiterating that the exchange will terminate user accounts found to be trading with “sanctioned entities” such as Tornado Cash and Garantex.
pee Wrote User accounts that deposit funds from or withdraw funds from OKX to sanctioned entities “will trigger compliance risk controls, resulting in account closure,” Xu said in a post. Xu cited Russian exchange Garantex and cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash as examples of sanctioned entities.
Xu’s statement came after user Satoshi Friends made the announcement. Said On X, he told his followers that users in the Commonwealth of Independent States were “risking having their accounts suddenly blocked, their funds frozen, and losing all their assets.”
“My account was blocked, and my referral base that had been built up over the years was also blocked,” Satoshi Friends wrote, adding that “influencers who recommend OKX exchange may be taking on not only financial but also reputational risks.”
On this matter, Xu separately said: mail OKX has suspended its services to Satoshi Friends users due to them having made “some significant transactions involving approved exchanges or DeFi protocols.”
“Before blocking the account, we allowed them to withdraw clean funds,” he wrote in a post to Satoshi Friends. “They asked me to set up a new account and transfer data from my old account to the new one. This is a form of circumvention of our compliance policy, so we are unable to do it.”
The Block has reached out to OKX and Satoshi Friends for further comment.
Tornado Cash is a controversial crypto mixer that is considered problematic or illegal by various regulators. It helps to hide the movement of cryptocurrencies, making it difficult for law enforcement to track illicit funds.
Earlier this week, blockchain security company PeckShield Establish Addresses related to the development of Nomad Bridge Sent The stolen cryptocurrency 14,500 Ether (35.2 million USD) was transferred to Tornado Cash.
Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev said: Bail denied Earlier this month he was sentenced to five years and four months in prison in the Netherlands for money laundering.
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