Who Owns the Most Tornado Cash?

By Sydney Barrett Last updated Dec 4, 2022

Tornado Cash was launched in 2019 as a no-custodial, decentralized smart contract platform built on top of the Ethereum blockchain. Photo: Satheesh Sankaran/Shutterstock

In recent months, global financial markets have been hit hard by dwindling investor confidence and the growing prospect of recession. Meanwhile, the global cryptocurrency market cap has fallen to December 2020 levels.

Tornado Cash (TORN), a non-custodial data protection solution, hit an all-time high of $437.41 on February 13, 2021 during the crypto boom of early 2021.

However, amid unusually bearish market sentiment due to the FTX crash, the TORN token price fell to an all-time low of $3.48 on Nov. 9. On December 2nd, the TORN coin was trading at $5.33, up x% from its all-time low.

Tornado Cash (TORN) token price chart

How would the TORN token fare under these circumstances? Who Owns the Most Tornado Cash Tokens and How Are They Affected?

What is Tornado Cash and how does it work?

Tornado Cash was launched in August 2019 by Roman Storm and Roman Semenov as a no-custodial decentralized smart contract platform built on top of the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain. It is a cryptocurrency mixer that increases the anonymity of crypto transactions and makes them harder to trace.

A cryptocurrency mixer allows for anonymous transactions, making it nearly impossible to track cryptocurrency wallets. The mixer receives hundreds and thousands of transactions that are mixed before being sent to a specific wallet.

Suppose a user wants to move Bitcoin (BTC) to another wallet. Through the use of mixers, the funds are fractionally spread across hundreds and thousands of wallets before reaching the recipient’s wallet.

How does Tornado Cash work? When a user plans to deposit ERC-20 tokens or ETH into the Tornado Cash protocol’s liquidity pools, the protocol creates a secret hash before accepting the deposit and hash.

Users who want to withdraw their cryptocurrency enter the secret hash to verify ownership. Since the funds first go through the protocol’s liquidity pools, it is difficult to connect the deposit to the withdrawal. This ensures full protection of assets.

The TORN token is a native ERC-20 governance token of the Tornado Cash platform with a fixed supply allowing holders to propose and vote on protocol changes.

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Tornado Cash news and price drivers

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Tornado Cash on Aug. 8 for its involvement in laundering more than $7 billion worth of virtual currencies Lazarus Group, a state-sponsored DPRK hacking group ( DPRK), sanctioned by the US in 2019.

Additionally, Tornado Cash was later used to launder more than $96 million in cash collected from hostile cyber actors during the June 24, 2022 Harmony Bridge heist and at least $7.8 million from the Nomad robbery on August 2, 2022.

As a result of OFAC sanctions, US users are no longer allowed to transfer assets through the mixer or reclaim cash locked on the platform without express approval from the US Treasury Department.

Circle, the issuers of USDC, a US dollar-pegged stablecoin, froze over $75,000 in assets on the platform to comply with government sanctions.

The makers of Tether (USDT), another U.S. dollar-based stablecoin, said they would await a formal, direct request from OFAC before suspending accounts related to Tornado Cash.

Meanwhile, exchange platform Coinbase (COIN) is sponsoring a lawsuit against the US Treasury over the sanctions, alleging that the Treasury exceeded its powers by banning the platform rather than just specific individuals.

Tornado Cash Tokenomics

On December 2nd, the token was trading at $5.50. According to CoinMarketCap, it had a maximum supply of 10 million tokens, with 1.09 million TORN tokens in circulation, taking its market cap to $5.89 million.

The maximum supply is the maximum amount of coins or tokens that will ever be generated. This means that once the limit is reached, no more coins will be created or mined.

Amid all the controversy surrounding the Tornado Cash platform, its token crashed many times and has lost about 99% of its value from its all-time high of $437.41 on February 13, 2021.

Who Owns the Most Tornado Cash Tokens? Analysis of TORN whales

According to CoinCarp, there were 8,635 Tornado cash holders as of Dec. 2, versus 8,438 wallet holders as of Nov. 3, a 2.33% increase.

The top 10 and top 100 holders dominated 90.58% and 97.98% of the TORN supply, respectively, making the coin very vulnerable to pump-and-dump operations.

Who has the most Tornado Cash tokens? Further analysis revealed that Tornado Cash was the largest holder of Tornado Cash with 4.12 million tokens, or 41.25% of the supply currently in circulation.

Meanwhile, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance (BNB) was the second largest holder of Tornado money with 3.3 million tokens, or 33.04% of supply.

Among other top Tornado Cash holders, OKX, another cryptocurrency exchange, dominated 0.72% of supply, while exchanges Gate.io and Bitget held 0.36% and 0.11% of supply, respectively.

Aside from these exchanges, other wallets held many TORN tokens. Because crypto wallets are anonymous, the identities of these TORN whales have been hidden from the public.

The final result

Tornado Cash (TORN) has been a highly volatile asset since its debut in 2019. First, the token had a meteoric rise until February 2021, after which it started to decline.

Additionally, ongoing US Treasury tightening, recession worries and the recent collapse of the behemoth FTX exchange have caused TORN’s price to fall below $5 for the first time since its inception.

US-based investors are now barred from accessing the Tornado Cash network, which is one of the factors that contributed to the recent price drop. The pending lawsuit against the US Treasury Department will have a major impact on the Tornado Cash price.

While knowing who owns the most Tornado Cash tokens is important in order to access the project’s tokenonomy and ownership concentration, you should always do your own due diligence. View the latest news, technical analysis and a wide range of analyst opinions before making a trading decision.

Remember that past performance is no guarantee of future returns. And never trade with money you cannot afford to lose.

frequently asked Questions

How many Tornado Cash owners are there?

According to CoinCarp data, there were 8,635 Tornado cash holders as of Dec. 2, versus 8,438 wallet holders as of Nov. 3, a 2.33% increase. Tornado Cash held 4.12 million TORN tokens (41.25% of the circulating supply). Binance (BNB), the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, held 3.3 million tokens (33.04%).

Who Created Tornado Cash?

Roman Storm and Roman Semenov founded Tornado Cash in 2019. Storm first became interested in blockchain technology in 2011. He had also worked with Amazon, providing feedback on decentralized finance (DeFi) initiatives like Compound and 0x. Semenov was an expert in quantum statistics and field theory. Before Tornado Cash, he co-founded RedHelper and PepperSec and helped optimize ecommerce conversions and funnels.

What makes Tornado Cash unique?

Tornado Cash excels at breaking the on-chain connection between a source address and a destination address, effectively improving the anonymity associated with financial transactions.