Tornado Cash to Decentralize Governance Via TORN Token

Tornado Cash presented a governance proposal to incentivize use of the Ethereum-based privacy tool via a new token called TORN.

Tornado Cash allows users to deposit a fixed amount of supported assets (ETH, USDC, DAI) and “wash it” through an anonymity pool. That deposited value can be redeemed by the receiving address using a note so that the sender and the receiver can not be linked.

Anonymity Mining

With TORN, users who deposit assets to the mixer are able to participate in so-called Anonymity Mining, allowing them to accrue a balance in Anonymity Points (AP) that can be redeemed for TORN governance tokens via a new privacy-focused AMM.

In typical DeFi fashion, all those who have deposited assets on Tornado Cash before Dec. 7 stand to share 5% of the initial supply, distributed as non-transferable vouchers (vTORN) to be used in governance, redeemable 1:1 for transferable TORN tokens one year after deployment.

TORN Airdrop

The earlier a deposit was made and the greater in aggregate deposits an account performed, the larger portion of the vTORN airdrop that address earned.

The proposal adds a proxy layer on top of Tornado Cash’s immutable smart contracts, allowing for Anonymity Mining and governance to occur without altering the underlying structure of the protocol that has thrived to date.

Rather than pushing the changes live, the Tornado Cash team has left all the suggestions up to the community to deploy.

Users in Control

“We don’t control Tornado.Cash” states the blog post “It’s users do, so if the community adopts this proposal, then it will become the way forward for privacy on Ethereum.”

The source code and a convenient deploy link are now live at initiation.tornado.cash, meaning it’s only a matter of time before an unsung DeFi developer comes along to do what they do best – deploy contracts without the core team’s permission.