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Investors sue Treasury Department for blacklisting crypto platform Tornado Cash

nytimes.com

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Re: Investors sue Treasury Department for blacklisting crypto platform Tornado Cash

#51

Post by polygamous_bat »

realce wrote: post #35
JustLurking2022 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a service specifically designed to facilitate money laundering. It's a bit like running a business that produces paperwork to make stolen cars indistinguishable from legal ones - there's no reason such a service should be allowed to exist.

Then produce distinct legislation that bans the specific practices used, otherwise it's just giving preference to currently entrenched forms of money laundering. It's not illegal whatsoever to mix up my dollar bills with a group of other people and get the same amount out that I put in. Such a statement is ridiculous.

If you ran an establishment where people would come in with big bags of cash with dubious source, swirl them around in a big vat, and someone else would come in with a chit to take out some cash from your vat, I am sure your establishment will get investigated and shut down. In this way it's no different from the real world. Just because it's online doesn't make it ok.

Re: Investors sue Treasury Department for blacklisting crypto platform Tornado Cash

#52

Post by redox99 »

JustLurking2022 wrote: post #24
mikece wrote: post #3

Banning a service because it "might be used for illegal purposes" is insufficient. This is a problem with law enforcement in general: they are lazy and seek to have automated solutions to so much of what used to be called police work. This applies to warrant-less wiretaps, pulling information on people from 3rd party data brokers to side-step warrant and FOIA requirements, and more. I would rather money-launderers ge…

It's a service specifically designed to facilitate money laundering. It's a bit like running a business that produces paperwork to make stolen cars indistinguishable from legal ones - there's no reason such a service should be allowed to exist.

That's like saying knives are designed to facilitate murder.

TC is made for privacy, which either is or should be a basic right.

Without tools such as TC if I send you money, show you some POAPs[1] I own, or otherwise interact in any way with my crypto, it is fairly simple to deduce or make educated guesses of how much crypto I own, who I send it to or from, and more. This has serious implications not only for privacy, but for safety reasons too.

TC makes it so you can transfer from your cold wallet to your hot wallet, without trivially revealing what your cold wallet is (and thus your funds).

Furthermore TC also allows you to keep a receipt of these anonymous transfers, so you can in the future prove the origin of your funds or reveal such transactions.

[1] https://poap.xyz/

Re: Investors sue Treasury Department for blacklisting crypto platform Tornado Cash

#53

Post by bitxbitxbitcoin »

kibwen wrote: post #34
programmarchy wrote: post #27

If Tornado Cash could be banned, couldn't the same logic be used to ban Tor? The former obscures financial transactions, and the latter obscures communications, but there's a similar principle in play.

The US military itself uses Tor. They don't want to ban it, because even if the traffic on Tor is illicit, it still serves to mask the military's own traffic. Don't forget that Tor was originally developed by the US Navy.

I’d be willing to bet there is US government black budget money that moved over Tornado Cash, too. The issue then becomes that Tornado Cash wasn’t originally developed by the govt and whatever further implications that has.

Re: Investors sue Treasury Department for blacklisting crypto platform Tornado Cash

#55

Post by nh23423fefe »

houstonn wrote: post #36
JustLurking2022 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a service specifically designed to facilitate money laundering. It's a bit like running a business that produces paperwork to make stolen cars indistinguishable from legal ones - there's no reason such a service should be allowed to exist.

It's a service specifically designed for privacy. A human right.

Oh its a human right. you've won the argument then

Re: Investors sue Treasury Department for blacklisting crypto platform Tornado Cash

#56

Post by woodruffw »

bitxbitxbitcoin wrote: post #45
zeusk wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're really saying; banks, money exchanges and hot dog stands have no other utility other than to "wash" money?

It’s reductionist but yes - “washing” money is a core part of their function. Note OP didn’t say laundering.

No, it isn't. Banks exist to induce stability and liquidity (i.e., the efficient flow of capital) within the economy. Hot dog stands exist to sell hot dogs. Money exchanges exist to transfer currencies to (you guessed it) facilitate commerce in different regions.

The hair you're attempting to split between "laundering" and "washing" does not exist in the financial world, and would not impress financial regulators.

Re: Investors sue Treasury Department for blacklisting crypto platform Tornado Cash

#57

Post by criddell »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #18
jfim wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of it is used for legitimate reasons versus illicit ones? If the overwhelming majority of the transactions are illicit, it makes sense to ban it.

I agree with you, but I'd like to point out that the same logic could be applied to e.g. game console emulators. ...and as much as I hate to say it, I do think the logic might be correct in both situations. (I say this as a heavy user of console emulators—albeit also as someone who does go through the trouble to legally dump his own games.)

I don't know that it's really an apples-to-apples comparison. Console emulators are a copyright issue and those are generally (but not always) civil matters.

Re: Investors sue Treasury Department for blacklisting crypto platform Tornado Cash

#58

Post by asoneth »

dsr_ wrote: post #22
jfim wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of it is used for legitimate reasons versus illicit ones? If the overwhelming majority of the transactions are illicit, it makes sense to ban it.

It makes even more sense to allow it, and regulate it. The regulation should be the existing Know Your Customer requirements plus a 100% traceable log subject to inspection, auditing and subpoena.

If Tornado Cash implemented KYC requirements and a 100% traceable log, what fraction of their existing users would continue to use them?

Re: Investors sue Treasury Department for blacklisting crypto platform Tornado Cash

#59

Post by woodruffw »

TEP_Kim_Il_Sung wrote: post #50
woodruffw wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Might be used for illegal purposes" is a significant understatement. The chief selling point of Tornado Cash is money laundering, which is in and of itself a crime in both the US and Netherlands. Normally, there'd be an aspect of plausible deniability: torrent index operators can, for example, rightfully claim that they're facilitating legal filesharing, or that they're entirely agnostic to the content being shared…

The chief selling point of Tornado Cash is that it's distributed open-source software, with no man in the middle, no single point of failure. That's right: Government sanctioned open-source SOFTWARE. Are you sure you want this precedent set?

I have no problem with Tornado Cash being openly available software under a permissive license. I have a problem with people running a Tornado Cash-based service that is really just a money laundering service.

You should take a step back: "open source" does not rinse away the underlying properties of a service. I can't write and deploy a web application that contracts hitmen and use the MIT license as a defense; the latter simply isn't being litigated.

Re: Investors sue Treasury Department for blacklisting crypto platform Tornado Cash

#60

Post by duped »

TEP_Kim_Il_Sung wrote: post #50
woodruffw wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Might be used for illegal purposes" is a significant understatement. The chief selling point of Tornado Cash is money laundering, which is in and of itself a crime in both the US and Netherlands. Normally, there'd be an aspect of plausible deniability: torrent index operators can, for example, rightfully claim that they're facilitating legal filesharing, or that they're entirely agnostic to the content being shared…

The chief selling point of Tornado Cash is that it's distributed open-source software, with no man in the middle, no single point of failure. That's right: Government sanctioned open-source SOFTWARE. Are you sure you want this precedent set?

> The chief selling point of Tornado Cash is that it's distributed open-source software, with no man in the middle, no single point of failure

for laundering money. You can't remove the key feature from metaproperties of the software and call the latter the "chief selling point."

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