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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

#471

Post by colinsane »

cryptocurrency is a challenge to the state. Bitcoin’s first block quotes a news headline “Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks” in order to establish the chain’s age. that message isn’t a mistake: Bitcoin emerged to challenge the state’s control over the monetary system.

13 years later we’re all caught up in surface-level details like “is this cryptocurrency thing a security” and “is this cryptocurrency mixer money laundering” meanwhile the basic premise/existence of cryptocurrency has been accepted de-facto.

surface-level regulations just kick the can down the road. beneath that surface is still a massive challenge to the state, only more diffuse, and that interior shapes the surface much more than the other way around. governments need to make up their mind: are they OK with yielding control over the money system, or not?

right now the answer looks like “yes, but we’re going to drag the process out”, which is sort of the worst thing for everyone. drawn-out wars hurt everyone. US ought to either ban cryptocurrency (private currencies) altogether, or step aside and let it happen.

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

#473

Post by downandout »

Pils wrote: post #444
downandout wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I used to use it. I won't explain the strategy, but I have a crypto trading bot that sometimes profits at the expense of other bots. The owners of these bots got so annoyed at this that they would blacklist the address at which my bot was, and would then track any addresses that I sent funds to from there and blacklist those in advance. TC broke this ownership chain, so they could no longer preemptively blackli…

Couldn't you just deposit ETH in an exchange and then send it to a fresh address? Seems like a hassle to use TC for that specific use case.

Technically? Yes. But you run the risk of getting your account closed for this kind of thing.

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

#474

Post by jim_kreggis »

eropple wrote: post #168
logicalmonster wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Normally, there'd be an aspect of plausible deniability If it was publicly known that you had exactly 1 ton of legally acquired gold in your house, would you feel perfectly safe sleeping at night? Is there not 1 sicko out there that would be willing to torture your family to find the combination to your vault? Plausible deniability exists here. It's called wanting privacy, and there's perfectly valid and non-crimin…

> In an of itself, mixing or trading to obfuscate your identity shouldn't be considered a crime or unreasonable in the slightest. "Financial privacy" isn't a real thing, because you owe taxes on income and investments. Can you explain to me how your tax assessor is able, then, to properly identify your income and tax you on it as appropriate? (Money laundering and tax evasion do not always go hand-in-hand. Many laund…

Your employer has your salary on record, so having financial privacy in no way prevents taxes being collected. Likewise you trade stocks through a broker, who knows how much you have in your brokerage account.

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

#475

Post by downandout »

ChrisLomont wrote: post #437
downandout wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The intent in question is manifested in Tornado Cash's design, which doesn't pass the malfeasance smell test: you can't absolve yourself of illegality by automating the illegality. Given that it also has legitimate uses, I think that's a very difficult case to make. Also, with very limited exceptions, nearly all crimes in the US require intent and/or knowing participation. It's a fundamental tenet of our system. Ther…

>Given that it also has legitimate uses, You're not addressing the point about "(a)(1)(B)(ii), which concerns reporting requirements". If they cannot meet US law for reporting requirements, then they are breaking the law, right?

No, they are not. They aren’t actively participating in the transactions, and thus have no reporting requirement. Users are not allowed to structure transactions, as it is illegal for them to do so.

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

#476

Post by colinsane »

wollsmoth wrote: post #292

I think my crypto info is behind the times. Can someone explain to me why people don't just exchange crypto for monero and then back if they want to "wash" it?

the Ethereum client ecosystem is one of the most robust. yeah, one can go eth -> zcash/monero back to eth, but that’s like a day-long process once you factor in blockchain syncing and blocktime/transaction settlement. TC is/was 5 minutes to enter and 5 minutes to exit.

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

#477

Post by jim_kreggis »

TremendousJudge wrote: post #434
notch656a wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OFAC's attacks on privacy are sociopathically irresponsible, and unlike Tornado Cash the federal government has actual monsters with weapons terrorizing the countryside.

Good thing we have the North Korean government and CP traders on our side, defending our rights.

Same old pro-mass surveillance arguments, we need it because there are terrorists and pedos

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

#478

Post by houstonn »

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…

A question for those in this thread who want to ban a privacy service because it's utilized for unlawful activity:

What's your opinion of Tor?

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

#479

Post by LatteLazy »

wollsmoth wrote: post #463
LatteLazy wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is effectively a test case for banning Monero etc. This is similar because it's just a tumbler, not a currency etc with a Tumbler built in.

Well idk how one would go about banning Monero. You can ban it from exchanges that connect with the banking system but via decentralized exchanges it's still possible to convert.

I think the same applies to Tornado? I am not sure and would be happy to be corrected.

As far as I can tell, being sanctioned like this makes it illegal for US companies and people to do business with you. So I think in either case it would be users who were prosecuted?

Enforcement is always the even messier bit of these broad and badly defined laws...

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

#480

Post by salawat »

mr_spothawk wrote: post #340
amalcon wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Banks store money, right? Does bitcoin store money? You mean physically? Plenty of banks (especially online banks and investment banks) don't physically store any more cash than something like a jewelry store. Physical storage is hardly a core characteristic of banking; I've never been to a branch of any of my current banks. If you don't mean physically, I can't see how this is different than "have accounts"... > B…

> Does bitcoin store money? still waiting. > How is a bitcoin address meaningfully different from an account? Well, for one, it's only an address. Not a ledger. Bitcoin transactions point money at one or more address. Transactions, you might argue, are one-off ledgers. But then bitcoin is just a collection of those transactions & relevant/necessary data to support them them, compiled & validated using a variety of ma…

Bitcoin is a Convertible Virtual Currency. It is money. End of story. FINCEN has spoken.
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