OKX Threatens Tornado Cash, Garantex Users with Termination

As the ecosystem of cryptocurrency evolves, exchanges like OKX face high pressure to strengthen their compliance policy, so as to reduce illegal behavior on their platforms. In a post on X, Star Xu, the CEO of OKX, declared that any accounts on the exchange found interacting with Tornado Cash or Garantex would be terminated.

This action will reinforce financial integrity and improve compliance measures with international sanctions. The announcement comes in response to recurring concerns about the entities that allow users to disrupt the origin and movement of their cryptocurrency transactions.

Elaborating more on the statement, Xu strongly asserted that if any user deposits money from any sanctioned entity mentioned above into OKX accounts or attempts to withdraw funds from OKX to these entities, those accounts will be permanently terminated. “We are required to comply with applicable sanctions policies, including US sanctions,” he stated.

The zero tolerance policy warning was issued following a public outcry from one of their users – Satoshi Friends. The user urged many members in his community to withdraw their funds from the OKX platform and cease using the exchange, citing their stringent policy, so as to avoid dire consequences. Satoshi posted a thread on X on Thursday, bringing to light the actions of OKX and how several influencers had their accounts blocked and funds limited. He asserted that he himself received partial resolution only after direct intervention with the OKX.

In response, Xu acknowledged that the user’s account had multiple transactions related to sanctioned exchanges and had provided the user a period of time to withdraw his funds before closure of the account. Xu admitted that they refused his request to transfer data from an old account to a new one, stating that it would violate their compliance policy and be a potential threat.

Xu reiterated the importance of compliance and refused to offer services to sanctioned persons or entities. Additionally, he assured that a majority of his users are unlikely to be affected by these measures because they will never conduct transactions related to a sanctioned person.