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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

#531

Post by andrewaylett »

TremendousJudge wrote: post #432
andrewaylett wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come to Scotland, we do regulate kitchen knives in the same way as we regulate knives designed as weapons. It's actually quite challenging to find a decent pocket knife that's legal to carry here: if the blade locks in place, it's not legal. So pretty much any Leatherman or Gerber that's not one of the mini ones is out, and all the cheaper brands are the same. I've taken to carrying a Geekey[1] and a knock-off Raptor…

What's wrong with Victorinox?

Nothing, I carried one from age 10.

Victorinox split their pocket knives into three categories: small, medium, and large. Only the large are comparable in size to multitools, and they all seem to have locking blades.

I'm actually pondering getting a basic medium-size pocket knife though, to complement what I'm carrying at the moment. Thank you for reminding me :).

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

#532

Post by jdmichal »

hakfoo wrote: post #508
jdmichal wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your real estate example is not a great fit, because real estate transfers are not common. That particular tax-free status on the transfers would probably be best interpreted as a carve out or loophole, with the normal status being that the transactions should be taxed. On the other hand, depositing money is the normal status. Depositing what amounts to large sums over arbitrary periods of time is also normal. Direct…

Is mandatory reporting a good idea, though? I feel like the signal-to-noise ratio must be terrible, especially as inflation gradually lowers the meaning of a $10,000 reporting limit. Selling a used car is enough to trigger a reportable amount of cash. I'd think what we need is less magic numbers, and instead a better training/reporting ecosystem that insulates people with good intentions but gives them the right tool…

Agreed on the last bit. Having a clear-cut line where "this must be reported" is I think necessary for liability reasons. There are definitely other transactions that should be reported, in the spirit of the actual AML (anti money laundering) issue. But I think it's necessary to be able to say, in a legal setting, that the required obligation was met and discharged, even if something happened that probably should have been caught.

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

#533

Post by dfadsadsf »

xeromal wrote: post #413
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…

For someone who isn't in the know of this case, can you share some legitimate uses for Tornado Cash?

Anonymity and privacy is very useful in a lot of legal use cases. One example is buying domain name without disclosing who is buying (disclosing that information may dramatically inflate price).

There are obviously workarounds without tornado cash but tornado cash is probably the cheapest option.

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

#534

Post by omniglottal »

BobbyJo wrote: post #411
ls15 wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I struggle to find a legitimate use case for hiding transactions from your bank and thus tax authority (assuming a developed country). Roe v. Wade

Do abortion clinics accept crypto now?

Hosting providers do, and a doctor could lose their career for being found to author and purvey life-saving information on this topic.

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

#535

Post by omniglottal »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #307
chrischattin wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever tried to make a wire transfer on a weekend? Having access to your money outside of banking hours is just one of many use cases I can think of off the top of my head.

The vast majority of the time, you don't need a wire transfer. And if your debit/credit card doesn't work on the weekend, you need a new bank; That's not the fault of banking as a whole.

The vast majority is not enough. The phrasing isn't "innocent until statistically guilty".

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

#536

Post by omniglottal »

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…

Finding an irrelevant case to talk about does not eliminate the relevant cases you're changing the conversation away from.

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

#537

Post by programmarchy »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #290
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.

> couldn't the same logic be used to ban Tor? No. Despite attempts to conflate code on a blockchain with code as a concept, the code comprising Tornado Cash hasn’t been banned. You can publish it. Hell, you can re-deploy it, though that would be stupid.

Right, I was referring to the wholesale banning operation of the service, not the source code. Sure, you can print the source code on a t-shirt or something like DeCSS, but that's less relevant.

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

#538

Post by everfree »

waste_monk wrote: post #511
everfree wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laws bind people, and people should comply with laws. Technology is not a person. People who make technology should not be expected to add measures to it to make sure that nobody is ever able to use it to commit a crime. This kind of thinking would have resulted in guns being banned until technology exists for the gun itself to detect who was firing it and what it was being fired at, to prevent any crimes from occurr…

>People who make technology should not be expected to add measures to it to make sure that nobody is ever able to use it to commit a crime Why not? It's quite common, e.g. a lot of photocopiers have safeguards to prevent currency counterfeiting and will refuse to copy bank notes containing the EURion constellation and other common bank note markers. Pretty much any decent financial software will have sane defaults fo…

> If you deliberately build something that can facilitate money laundering and ignore finance laws about KYC and mandatory reporting and and so on, you only have yourself to blame if you run into legal trouble. It doesn't matter if you don't like the law or think it should apply.

Do you believe that code is protected speech? Do you believe that people should be prosecuted for publishing source code that has the potential to be used maliciously if compiled and run?

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

#539

Post by waste_monk »

everfree wrote: post #538
waste_monk wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>People who make technology should not be expected to add measures to it to make sure that nobody is ever able to use it to commit a crime Why not? It's quite common, e.g. a lot of photocopiers have safeguards to prevent currency counterfeiting and will refuse to copy bank notes containing the EURion constellation and other common bank note markers. Pretty much any decent financial software will have sane defaults fo…

> If you deliberately build something that can facilitate money laundering and ignore finance laws about KYC and mandatory reporting and and so on, you only have yourself to blame if you run into legal trouble. It doesn't matter if you don't like the law or think it should apply. Do you believe that code is protected speech? Do you believe that people should be prosecuted for publishing source code that has the poten…

I'm not sure, to be honest.

We have a right to freedom of expression and opinion (Australia is party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political rights), but there are a number of areas where this can be restricted e.g. using a telecommunications network with intent to commit or facilitate a crime is forbidden.

I think probably writing/hosting the code might be ok (although Github et. al are certainly not obliged to host it), but deploying it to a cryptocurrency network would be where it becomes a problem. I don't think any reasonable person would believe that Tornado Cash wouldn't be used to commit money laundering offences, and intent does matter when it regards facilitating crime. I would also think that participating in a DAO (exercising voting rights or what have you) that controls a cryptocurrency tumbler would count as facilitating crime assuming you didn't immediately try to shut the thing down once it became clear it was being used for money laundering.

But, I am not a lawyer (and this is not legal advice). That's just my surface-level understanding.

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

#540

Post by rglullis »

hef19898 wrote: post #427
rglullis wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't get confused by the terminology and don't get into word-thinking. A "contract" on the blockchain is nothing like a "contract" in the legal sense. Even if I get your signature on a blockchain saying that you are transferring your assets to me, there won't be any court willing to uphold this. In the same vein, it's not because that people talk about TC as a smart contract that gives it legal backing or makes it s…

What you describe, person A agreeing to sell over something to person B, even if just verbally, is a legal contract. Verbal contracts are perfectly legally binding, if somewhat hard to enforce for lack of proof. The lack of proof part is not a problem when it comes to blockchains, is it? Just because it is virtual doesn't mean real world laws don't apply. What gave you that idea?

> person A agreeing to sell over something to person B, even if just verbally, is a legal contract.

This is not at all what I am saying. What I am saying is that a contract is the definition of terms of a transaction, while a smart contract is the execution of a transaction.

A "contract" defines what parties are supposed to do and the courts use to determine the legal process in case of disputes. Enforcement is not part of the contract.

A "smart contract" is just about enforcement. It makes no sense to talk about the "smart contract" being legally binding or not, much like it makes no sense to talk about "running computer code" or "firing a gun" being legally binding. Sure, you can discuss if the actions resulting from someone running a program to be legal or not, but this has nothing to do with those actions where established in a "legally bound contract" or not.

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