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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

#291

Post by amalcon »

mr_spothawk wrote: post #266
amalcon wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, what? The inventor of Bitcoin said that it was cash? Well, that settles it then: nobody is allowed to disagree with an inventor about what their invention is or does. Sarcasm aside, I think Bitcoin functionally bears much more resemblance to a distributed bank than to distributed cash. It's not perfect resemblance, and there are people who disagree with me. Just saying that it's cash isn't sufficient evidence t…

> I think Bitcoin functionally bears much more resemblance to a distributed bank than to distributed cash. This is likely because you don't understand what a bank is, or that you don't understand what bitcoin is, or a combination. If you're interested in bank-like things that use bitcoin, you could learn more about fedimint. If you're interested in what bitcoin is, you could just read the white paper[0]. 0 - https://…

Interesting how you think I don't know what a bank is, or what Bitcoin is. I know what Bitcoin is; I have read both the whitepaper and (more importantly) most of the code (at the time). I do concede that I have an incomplete understanding of what a bank is, since banks do a lot of different things. Adjusting the money supply and intermediating/securing transactions are both among the things that banks do. Those are the only things Bitcoin does, which is why I think Bitcoin more resembles a bank. Bitcoin can't facilitate offline transactions, which is the main thing cash does that banks don't.

I've tried to look into Fedimint, just because I thought it would help me understand your misconceptions about banks. I will admit to not fully understanding what they are up to, but assuming my scam radar had a false positive it seems to be a privacy-oriented sidechain service. That... doesn't seem particularly relevant here?

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

#293

Post by jbverschoor »

NelsonMinar wrote: post #132

Mixers never fail to astonish me. They are explicitly a product to facilitate money laundering. They are marketed as a way to wash illicit funds. And then the folks who run them get mad when law enforcement tries to shut them down?

Would you like it if you pay for a burger somewhere and this person can see EVERYTHING you’ve ever did financially?

Or if your employer pays you, and decides to kick you out because he doesn’t agree with some transactions you made?

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

#294

Post by chollida1 »

rglullis wrote: post #236
hef19898 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Close down until you figured out a way to react. Money laundering is serious crime, helping North Korea is as well. Tornado cash did apparently both, and authorities gave them a heads up. If it was me, I would close my shop down.

Quoted post unavailable.

https://medium.com/@blockchain101/the-basics-of-upgradable-p...

You put in a proxy contract that just sends the money back to the user who sent it to you.

Problem solved for sanctions.

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

#295

Post by neuronexmachina »

capableweb wrote: post #153
danaris wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...Because money laundering is illegal . No one's going to advertise openly to the public "Assassination services here! Just call 1-800-KIL-THEM!" And no one's going to put in public documents "we set up this company in order to facilitate money laundering."

Alright, so there is no proof that Tornado Cash was setup to facilitate money laundering, yet so many here on HN keeps saying "was designed to launder money". What does "designed to X" mean if not that the tool itself was intentionally, purposefully and explicitly made to do X? And if that's true, why isn't there any public evidence of that being true?

I think the confusion is one of definitions. Basically, the whole point of cryptocurrency tumblers like TC is to obscure the original source of funds. That can be used for both legal and illegal funding sources. I think some folks in this thread are using the term "money laundering" to refer to both legal and illegal fund-source-obscuring, while others are using it to refer purely to illicit sources.

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

#296

Post by mr_spothawk »

amalcon wrote: post #291
mr_spothawk wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think Bitcoin functionally bears much more resemblance to a distributed bank than to distributed cash. This is likely because you don't understand what a bank is, or that you don't understand what bitcoin is, or a combination. If you're interested in bank-like things that use bitcoin, you could learn more about fedimint. If you're interested in what bitcoin is, you could just read the white paper[0]. 0 - https://…

Interesting how you think I don't know what a bank is, or what Bitcoin is. I know what Bitcoin is; I have read both the whitepaper and (more importantly) most of the code (at the time). I do concede that I have an incomplete understanding of what a bank is, since banks do a lot of different things. Adjusting the money supply and intermediating/securing transactions are both among the things that banks do. Those are t…

Banks store money, right? Does bitcoin store money?

Banks have accounts, right? Does bitcoin have accounts?

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

#298

Post by mr_spothawk »

eropple wrote: post #265
mr_spothawk wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no such thing as consent when you're coerced.

My poor, so-very-put-upon friend: you can choose to leave . But there is a collectively hashed-out social contract you accept by staying, and it should be of no surprise that the law takes that contract as table stakes and acts according to it.

Tell it to Rosa Parks.

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

#299

Post by polygamous_bat »

mr_spothawk wrote: post #271
polygamous_bat wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Driving a car requires a license and registration of the vehicle. You can go to jail for driving a car without a registration or license. In very much the same way, if you are running a money transmitting business, you need to register with the government and follow the government laws. Otherwise, you risk going to jail. It's not rocket science. Just because it is on the internet doesn't make it a whole new thing.

> You can go to jail for driving a car without a registration or license. Since when is driving a car without registration or license a felony?

Here is an example: in Texas, unauthorized use of a vehicle, which would include driving a car that you can't prove is yours, can be punishable by two years in jail. [1] From what I understand getting caught driving without a license the first time is generally a misdemeanor, but for repeated offence in for example CA can land you in jail.

Running a whole operation around driving without a license is what tornado cash is more similar to, not accidentally forgetting your license once, which is what the misdemeanor is for.

[1] https://casetext.com/statute/texas-codes/penal-code/title-7-...

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

#300

Post by zionic »

qeternity wrote: post #283
zionic wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They are explicitly a product to facilitate money laundering How is HN so consistently cryptophobic? Imagine the reaction you’d get here suggesting say, E2EE is “explicitly a product for {crime}”. You’d be rightly mocked, but throw in crypto and it’s like 75% of the people here lose basic reasoning skills. I’d be less frustrated if it wasn’t so common.

No, it’s like saying E2EE encryption is designed to secure private communications between two parties, which is what it’s designed to do. Mixers are designed to facilitate money laundering. You can claim it’s for legitimate privacy, etc but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s money laundering.

Money laundering means concealing dirty cash, clean money doesn’t need to be laundered by definition.

A mixer concealing the public address of clean money is not nefarious in any way and should be perfectly legal.

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