I take this as an endorsement that it works.
Investors sue Treasury Department for blacklisting crypto platform Tornado Cash
501–510 of 544 posts
Re: Investors sue Treasury Department for blacklisting crypto platform Tornado Cash
#502Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Then maybe don't pay using a payment system that was designed in a way that makes this one of its most prominent features?
or use a mixer.
Re: Investors sue Treasury Department for blacklisting crypto platform Tornado Cash
#503Earlier quoted context omitted.
An ATM isn't a dog either. Executing code isn't free speech. The code may be. The execution not so much.
Contract devs don't execute the code. They simply broadcast the it to the Ethereum network. Deploying a contract is conceptually no different than publishing source code to GitHub. It's actually the Ethereum node operators that execute the code. (Hence why the contract devs can't stop a running smart contract.) If you want to make the argument that the persons executing the code are liable, than it should be the Ethe…
Given that the treasury department has frozen Tornado, and generally made the whole project persona non grata, I believe your theory here is fairly thoroughly debunked.
Trying to find a loophole in the law by trickery is why we use human courts - the judge can still find you guilty and punish the living crap out of you for abetting money laundering.
Re: Investors sue Treasury Department for blacklisting crypto platform Tornado Cash
#504Earlier quoted context omitted.
The onus is for technology to comply with laws, not the other way around.
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…
If the people writing the laws wish it, then yes, technologies should be expected to do so. In practice, your gun detector wouldn't solve all gun crimes, just like crypto regulations don't stop all crypto crimes and littering regulations don't stop all littering crimes. They just reduce those crimes to the point that society seems reasonable.
Re: Investors sue Treasury Department for blacklisting crypto platform Tornado Cash
#505Earlier quoted context omitted.
I must say that I dislike the rationale for banning structuring. It's basically a law that bans attempts to comply with the letter of another law without complying with its spirit. Complying with any law should be completely straightforward.
I must say that I dislike the rationale for banning structuring. So there are two possibilities. 1. You think the government shouldn't be allowed to track money laundering 2. You have a suggestion on improving money laundering tracking without anti-structuring laws If you believe the government has a legitimate vested interest in stopping money laundering and you set a $10,000 limit before something must be reported,…
Requiring actual criminal proceeds. Simply wanting to avoid government attention should not be illegal. Covering up a crime should be.
Re: Investors sue Treasury Department for blacklisting crypto platform Tornado Cash
#506Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why don't you use the traditional banking system, which doesn't result in publicly listed transactions? I struggle to find a legitimate use case for hiding transactions from your bank and thus tax authority (assuming a developed country).
> Why don't you use the traditional banking system, which doesn't result in publicly listed transactions? You mean the banking system that freezes protesters' accounts when they do something doubleplusungood? Personal choices that don't violate the rights of others shouldn't require any explanation to retain your rights. But it's not hard to think of a lot of reasons for somebody to use crypto over banks besides the…
Exchanges could freeze any crypto you deposit with them and seize any UTXOs originating from your wallet just as easily. That's another reason to avoid crypto, having to worry about where it came from.
Re: Investors sue Treasury Department for blacklisting crypto platform Tornado Cash
#507Earlier quoted context omitted.
US Citizens can't leave. They must pay tribute to the United States globally and beyond until they die. Income earned in outer space is taxed as income earned in country.
Yeah, that's the price of retaining your American citizenship, which is among the most valuable in the world to have if you ever have a "I need to call my consulate" problem. But you don't have to retain your American citizenship--there are a lot of countries out there! Granted, that's assuming you're a valuable enough contributor to society that you'll find another country interested in taking you, one that won't si…
It’s really hard to get rid of American citizenship.
Re: Investors sue Treasury Department for blacklisting crypto platform Tornado Cash
#508Earlier quoted context omitted.
Structuring though is one of the dumbest, laziest and most arbitrary law ever. If you say that the limit is, say, max 100 K USD for something but plan to attack for structuring the person who did 5 times 100 K USD, then simply make the law clearer: make the law say 100 K USD max and, say, max 200 K USD over five years. But don't come after people who did respect the numbers written in the law for "structuring". It's…
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 tools to identify criminal behaviour.
Actually expecting banks to know their customers at a personal level should be the goal.
I suspect, in contrast, everyone involved likes a fixed 10k limit because it provides a convenient liability hand-off. Compliance can be automated on a much greater level and they can say "we filled out the appropriate forms when required, how were we supposed to know that Hamas Cupcakes Inc was a front?"
Re: Investors sue Treasury Department for blacklisting crypto platform Tornado Cash
#509Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you know that crypto is normally completely traceable? So if I for instance withdraw 100 million from an exchange, in a completely legal manner, and then visit a store or webshop to buy something with the same funds, then the store now knows that I have 100 million dollars? Mixing can be used for self protection.
> So if I for instance withdraw 100 million from an exchange, in a completely legal manner, and then visit a store or webshop to buy something with the same funds, then the store now knows that I have 100 million dollars? The more common this example of legitimate use becomes, the less useful it is, defeating the purpose. If it becomes common for crypto known to have come from Tornado to be there because the person i…
The obvious point is that everyone should mix it, not only the very rich people. Of course that means that something like Monero is far superior, since every transaction is always hidden and "mixed".
Re: Investors sue Treasury Department for blacklisting crypto platform Tornado Cash
#510Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Criminals are still required to pay taxes, they just aren't required to list its source >they can't get then for the failure to register A criminal filing an 8300 would be effectively "registering" their illegally owned money, including the source from who the money is received.
Please read prior comment "and that you couldn't pay that tax without registering"
Ultimately though the issue wasn't the tax, but that you had to register the evidence of your crime. If you could pay the tax anonymously it would have been fine. On the flipside, merely a requirement to register without paying the tax would still be self incrimination.
The form 8300 actually requires you to state both counterparties of the illegal transaction, which goes well within furnishing evidence useful in incriminating yourself. It's far more incriminating than the annual tax return, which shows an aggregate yearly amount rather than granularity of single transaction (or collection of "associated"-transaction) along with the date and name of both counterparties and a host of other details.