The total deposit volume in the cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash has reached a record $1.195 billion. In DL News, the jump in the protocol's TVL was explained by an influx of funds related to Richard Heart.

Source: DefiLlama.

"It seems that several large whales are currently dumping everything into Tornado Cash," commented security researcher at MetaMask, Taylor Monahan.

According to its analysis of on-chain data, in recent days, more than 20 wallets linked to the PulseX exchange transferred over 116,000 ETH to a mixer. At current prices, this amounts to ~$399.5 million or about a third of the TVL of Tornado Cash.

According to the SEC, Hart (, whose real name is Richard James Schueler), controls PulseX, the PulseChain blockchain on which the platform operates, and the HEX project. In 2023, the regulator accused the entrepreneur of raising more than $1 billion through unregistered cryptocurrency offerings via these entities.

In March 2025, the court found part of the SEC's arguments in the case against Hart unproven. Later, the agency decided not to file a new lawsuit.

The entrepreneur may have indirectly confirmed the large asset transfers discovered by experts through a post published on November 5 on the social network X.

wallet watchers be like pic.twitter.com/H0nTvZHE5l

— Richard Heart (@RichardHeartWin) November 5, 2025

"Wallet watchers will be like this," he signed the image.

What is happening with the Tornado Cash court cases?

In August 2022, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed sanctions on Tornado Cash. According to authorities, since the service's inception, criminals have laundered over $7 billion through it. In particular, hackers from the North Korean group Lazarus used the protocol.

The company's assets, user funds, and source code have been locked, and American residents and citizens have been prohibited from using the service.

On January 21, 2025, the appeals court in the US overturned sanctions due to "overreach" by OFAC and sent the case back to the district court in Texas for further proceedings. In April, the federal court prohibited the Agency from resuming or imposing new restrictions on the crypto mixer.

On May 14, 2024, a court in the Netherlands found Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev guilty of laundering $1.2 billion through a mixer and sentenced him to 64 months in prison. From that moment, the developer has been in custody. In July, he was denied bail while awaiting an appeal.

In February 2025, his imprisonment was suspended under the condition of electronic monitoring.

On August 23, 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice charged two co-founders of Tornado Cash, Roman Semenov and Roman Storm, with money laundering and sanctions violations. The latter was taken into custody.

In August 2025, the jury found Storm guilty of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transfer business. After the verdict was announced, the Ministry of Justice stated that it would cease prosecution under this article for the developers of DeFi applications.

Remember, since December 2024, a "red notice" from Interpol has been in effect against Hart at the request of Finnish authorities. He is wanted for willful tax evasion and assault.

ETH-3.12%

View Original

This page may contain third-party content, which is provided for information purposes only (not representations/warranties) and should not be considered as an endorsement of its views by Gate, nor as financial or professional advice. See Disclaimer for details.