In this case, it will be difficult to assess the prospects of the project if the team is anonymous. How will such a decentralized project differ from scams if both projects are presented by an anonymous team? Investors don't like an anonymous team.
Bitcoin didn't need the attention of investors to succeed in its early days. Satoshi created it to be a financial instrument/tool, not an investment vehicle. Because exchanges are now obliged to comply with KYC/AML laws, any project with anonymous developers is quickly flagged as a "scam". Of course, scammers hide their true identities to get what they want. But not every project with unknown developers are a scam. Would you call Bitcoin a scam because no one knows who created it? The fact that the creator of Bitcoin is anonymous, gives the project itself true censorship-resistance. You can bet governments will be behind Satoshi's "tail" if they knew his true identity.
With what happened with Tornado.Cash lately, I would take everything with a grain of salt. How far will governments go, will depend on how strong opposing forces get. If there's no opposition, governments will keep hunting crypto/Blockchain tech down until they destroy it for good. The US started with Tornado.Cash, but it could move on to other non-custodial mixers like CashShuffle (BCH), CashFusion (BCH), and Whirlpool (BTC using Samourai wallet). Considering that 90% of crypto projects don't prioritize decentralization, implementing sanctions and/or restrictions against mixers and/or privacy coins should be a no-brainer. Who knows what the future holds to our right to privacy? Just my thoughts
Im sure that some may have copied the code but the question is if even tornado developers can be jailed and then what's gonna happen with the forkers? They can be jailed as well. Think about that. Will you risking your life to be jailed? I will not do that. Yeah we know that how vitalik was giving his announcement about he was sometime using tornado but again this is mostly being used by criminals for the various purpose. I like the way how it was getting sanctioned.
Hackers who always hacking dapps were always using this money laundering tool.
Developers wouldn't risk themselves copying/forking the code, because they know that would raise the alarm of the government. No one wants to face jail time for fines, so this is only the beginning of the end for privacy. Things are going to get worse once CBDCs are released. Governments will keep pressuring against crypto/Blockchain tech to prevent as much people as possible from using it. They will always come up with the excuse that crypto is used for money laundering and tax evasion. But we all know their hidden agenda. Unless the crypto community stands against such actions, the vision of a decentralized and censorship-resistant financial system would be nothing but doomed.