Tornado Cash aims to solve a number of the [privacy](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/data-privacy) and [anonymity](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/anonymous) issues in the crypto world, particularly surrounding traceability of transactions. Tornado Cash v1 was launched in August 2019 as an experimental software, and later evolved into a fully [decentralized](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/decentralized) [non-custodial](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/non-custodial) protocol that permits [private](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/private-blockchain) transactions.
Tornado Cash utilizes [smart contracts](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/smart-contract) on the [Ethereum](https://www.coinlive.com/coin/ethereum) network. The protocol is able to achieve this level of privacy by disrupting the [on-chain](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/on-chain) link between the [addresses](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/public-address) of the sender and recipient. Often, the implementation of this technology is referred to as a “decentralized mixer.” The immutable nature of the protocol means that no transactions can be changed or tampered with, not even the developers, which assures the highest level of privacy to its users.