Topic: Tornado.Cash Sanctioned by the US (Read 708 times)

But he already dumped some of the tokens on the market... right?

So where does he get the authority to make a proposal?

Smart contracts are often hacked, so this is no surprise to me. But it's a good thing the hacker wants to undo the attack and make token holders whole again. This attack will only make the protocol stronger in the long run. That is if developers are willing to continue working on the project. They must be very cautious now that Tornado.Cash has been sanctioned by the US. Any interaction with the mixer would raise a red flag immediately.

It's a wild and crazy world out there, so we should expect the worst for crypto mixers in the long run. At least, we've got plenty of options to choose from. Who knows how long will Tornado.Cash last? Just my opinion

Well some more bad news for crypto mixer Tornado cash. It was hacked and hacker has made a proposal to undo his attack. The hacker wants the governance and decisions to be made by token holders. But there is some mixed views about this.

https://bitcoinist.com/hackers-exploit-sanctioned-mixer-tornado-cash/

A strong argument indeed. Let's see how this will unfold in the long run. I just hope crypto proponents win in their efforts of bringing privacy to all. It's not fair to "sanction" something that it's just code living on thousands of computers spread around the world. The US government can't seem to understand the difference between a decentralized protocol (eg: Tornado.Cash) and the person using the protocol itself. Just because North Korean hackers used the mixer to "launder money", doesn't mean everyone should be prohibited from using it.

At least, developers "forked" the Tornado.Cash project for the preservation of privacy and freedom. We now have Privacy Pools and several other alternatives to choose from. It's still possible to use Tornado.Cash by interacting with smart contracts directly, though. That's because it lives on a decentralized and censorship-resistant Blockchain (Ethereum) no one can take down easily (although the switch to PoS makes this subject to debate). Who knows if the US government ultimately gives up in its quest to bring down crypto/Blockchain tech for good? Just my thoughts

Off-chain solutions like Phonon and 0xMonero are the best privacy solutions. One day encryption will be cracked by AI and quantum computing and the only safe transactions are the ones that occurred outside the blockchain.

I have been saying this all the time about crypto space, it is one damn thing which was very excellent creation by Mr Satoshi. Today, it is suffering from hundreds of artificial problems that were created “later”. What I mean is simple, bitcoin was doing just great before centralised exchanges started growing in billion dollars industry overnight.

Slowly, they started inventing more projects, more ways to invest money such as ICO to fund alts.

Then came in so called mixers to get more privacy to the transaction and so called anonymous nature to their coins. First of all, bitcoin is already pseudonymous and there was no need of such system.

I believe this gave rise to devil minds who happens to start using these services for money laundering.
So this was supposed to happen.

https://beincrypto.com/tornado-cash-2-0-privacy-pools-money-launders-at-bay/
Tornado Cash 2.0: Privacy Pools Claim to Keep the Money Launders at Bay
In Brief
"Privacy Pools uses Zero-Knowledge Proof, through which users can explain that their withdrawals are not part of the illicit transactions.
The demo is at an experimental stage and has not been audited.
Privacy Pools may face regulatory challenges."
https://www.privacypools.com/

A few months ago, Coinbase backed a legal challenge to sanctions imposed by the US govt against Tornado Cash. Today the plaintiffs filed a motion for summary judgment, asking the court to reopen TC for all. Their arguments are simple but powerful.

https://twitter.com/iampaulgrewal/status/1643704641493020672

There may be a new Tornado.Cash alternative, but that doesn't mean it won't get sanctioned by the US government in the long run. Developers should've hosted the front-end interface on IPFS, just to ensure the new privacy protocol remains as censorship-resistant as possible. With a centralized domain tied to it, you can expect the US government to "shut it down" the same way it did with Tornado.Cash. Forks may show us the power of open source, but what matters is what mainstream governments think about it. And I'm pretty sure they won't allow people to gain privacy just like that, even if there are legitimate intentions behind it.

Governments often use the excuse that crypto mixers are used for money laundering and tax evasion, so expect further scrutiny down the road. Who knows if privacy within the crypto/Blockchain space will be eliminated for good? Just my thoughts

Anonymous, pseudonymous, private or confidential transactions are different things. And depending how the system is build, technically yes, that's basically what they are doing. But with zk not in a same way they are currently doing it.

Using privacy to escape aml regulations isn't going to be a thing in the future you can pretty much count on that. And if you have been following AML laws and FATF regulations that are tightening, you know i am not just making this up. At the moment, only reason for lack of these regulations is lack of sources as tracking isn't efficient enough. And obviously it isn't cheap.

But it's the truth. There's no in between. It's either private/anonymous or not.

I really wonder what happens when someone transfers "dirty' coins through the tool because one time they will. Do they block the funds? Raise an alarm to the feds that. "Hey folks! Here is an address with dirty coins!"

Logical approach. So many people seem to think that everything needs to be fully private and anonymous or there's no privacy. I honestly don't even get why they weren't using the selective privacy as that is one of the coolest things you can go with zk. I am actually excited about this and i am watching closely where this leads. Especially i am looking forward in what kind info are they required to verify.

This is a good alternative for now, but who knows, this government agencies will be at least again and will put a sanction so it's going to be very hard on whether we want to used it or not.

So it might be another ticking time bomb, just saying.

Nevertheless it's for the own good of crypto enthusiast who want's to have their own privacy.

https://decrypt.co/122522/tornado-cash-fork-privacy-pools
Tornado Cash Contributor Builds New Privacy Tool—And Hopes It Won’t Trigger the Feds
"Ameen Soleimani, an early contributor to Tornado, has created a fork that aims to be a better version of the blacklisted Ethereum coin mixer.

Users can still make anonymous transactions but there is the option to make it clear that the money being moved is not from something criminal—like a hack. The new app works just like Tornado Cash, but when users click the option to withdraw funds, they can generate a zero-knowledge proof which publicly shows they are not using a criminal blockchain address, but without revealing who they are."

Thanks for sharing this, mate. It's good to know there are numerous alternatives to Tornado.Cash, especially when the US government exceeded its authority. We need privacy tools to protect our utmost sensitive information. Just because Tornado.Cash is a mixer, doesn't mean it was solely used for illegal purposes. There were people that were using the tool for legitimate purposes. Sanctioning, or even banning a decentralized mixer, would be sending us a message that "privacy is a crime".

It's a good thing the OFAC came to their senses by separating the good actors from the bad ones. People can now ask for a license from such agency to withdraw their funds from Tornado.Cash. While this defeats the purpose of "No KYC", at least it's better something than nothing. We're going to have to see if governments (especially the US government) will escalate towards privacy coins and decentralized exchanges. Crypto/Blockchain tech is growing at fast pace in terms of popularity and mainstream adoption, so I wouldn't be surprised if there's further scrutiny from the government against the aforementioned tools. No one knows what the future holds for the crypto/Blockchain industry, so we can only hope for the best. Just my opinion

There are still 6 similar cryptocurrency mixers in the Ethereum ecosystem: RAILGUN, Buccaneer V3, White Ethereum, 0xTIP, Messier 87 Black Hole and Cyclone Protocol
https://www.elliptic.co/hubfs/tornado-cash-alternatives.pdf
"Elliptic’s internal analysis identifies Cyclone Protocol as the highest risk amongst the Tornado
Cash alternatives active today. Its high transaction limits, the relatively large liquidity of its
mixing pools and its ability to mix the token of a sanctioned entity (TORN) makes it a cause
for concern. It’s confirmed use to launder at least some proceeds of DeFi exploits, the large
amount of funds it has since processed and the apparent absence of its developer team to
address concerns only strengthen these risks.
Also scored “medium-high” is Buccaneer V3, which has not addressed any AML concerns
throughout its development. BV3 is unique to the other protocols as it takes the form of a
token, rather than a service. A main mitigating factor of BV3, however, is that it claims to utilize
technology that is currently being tested. Whether it lives up to the features and capabilities it
has promised remains to be seen – with several rival obfuscation protocols casting doubt that
it can.
The remaining protocols all have mitigating factors arguably significant enough to ward
off large-scale illicit use. RAILGUN, while popular, generates compliance reports and has a
partially doxxed development team, meaning that it will likely comply with any investigations.
Its technology has also been scrutinized by rivals. Messier 87, meanwhile, has actively stated
that it will comply with subpoenas and provide such reports to authorities. Finally, White
Ethereum and 0xTIP struggle with low mixing limits and low liquidity pools respectively, making
them unviable replacements for Tornado Cash-level obfuscation at present.
Elliptic will continue to monitor the post-Tornado obfuscation industry across Ethereum Virtual
Machine (EVM)-compatible chains and update both virtual asset businesses and investigators
when new risks emerge. To keep ahead of these risks and receive updates from Elliptic’s
Research & Investigation Team, sign up to Elliptic Connect and stay updated with our weekly
newsletter."
elliptic.co (C)

They shouldn't if the code can be changed by the devs anytime they want which is the case here.

There used to be a paper wallet service called, bitaddress or something. It was an open source and a highly trusted service. Then some other person bought out the domain/business and placed a spyware/malware inside the code. Lots of people got burned because of that.

They surely did trust the code.

But little they know, they should have read and understood the code everytime they used that service which is obviously impossible. Not only impossible, most of these users don't even know how to code.

People will just have to trust the code. Satoshi Nakamoto's identity was never known, yet people trust Bitcoin because of the way it was designed. Early crypto projects had anonymous developers behind them, but that didn't stop them from becoming highly successful in the long run. I wouldn't see any difference with non-custodial mixers (decentralized). Unfortunately, ever-increasing KYC/AML requirements has led the public to seek identifiable information about developers to help gain their trust. Developers who don't disclose their identities are quickly labeled as "scammers". I know that scams are fluent in crypto land, but not every project with unknown developers is actually a scam.

I believe it's best for mixing protocols to be created by anonymous developers in order to remain as censorship-resistant as possible. Governments can't hunt down developers if they don't know who they are. Tornado.Cash didn't prioritized censorship-resistance, so it quickly fell down the drain after the sanctions (even thought smart contracts are still accessible on the ETH blockchain). Most so-called "non-custodial mixers" rely on centralized infrastructure, so taking them down should be a piece of cake. Unless developers host the frontend interface on censorship-resistant networks like IPFS or ZeroNet, mixers won't be going anywhere soon. Just my opinion

The code may survive regardless of what happened to the devs but these mixers are private businesses. People won't automatically trust some random people that build the same service from the same code. Lots of mixing services came and went before. Most of them were scams. It will take lots of time before people start trusting them and that means a lot of lost time for those who need these services.

Mixing service yes is always doomed. but they will keep coming up no matter us banned or other gov want to banning him

behind mixing service is to get more privacy but nowadays no no for the beginning of the service mixer service has been used as money laundry.

hacker is bad we must add line of code that block if hacker try to mix their dirty money to avoid this kind sactioned

It seems so. They're fairly new to me, so I wouldn't pour large amounts of crypto on them just to be safe. I'm glad there are alternatives out there in order to help protect people's privacy. Just because crypto mixers exist, that doesn't mean they're solely used for malicious purposes. People have many legitimate reasons to use a mixer, especially when they don't want third parties spying on their transactions. Businesses need privacy to help protect their utmost sensitive information, so I don't get why the government is completely against crypto mixers.

I get the government wants to stop money laundering and tax evasion, but taking down the mixer completely by sanctioning it is not the ideal path to take. Instead of sanctioning mixers, why doesn't the US government sanction the individuals using the mixers for illegal activities? I'm pretty sure this will be challenged at the court soon (if it hasn't already), so only time will tell us what lies ahead for crypto/Blockchain tech's prominence in the mainstream world. Just my opinion

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/08/coinbase-bankrolls-suit-against-treasury-department-following-tornado-cash-sanctions.html

"Coinbase is backing a lawsuit filed against the Treasury Department Thursday by six users of a recently sanctioned crypto service.
Treasury said the service helped launder billions from state-sponsored bad actors. But crypto enthusiasts argue that sanctioning crypto code is an overstep and could cause negative ripple effects in the tech industry.
“It sets a dangerous precedent,” Coinbase’s chief legal officer, Paul Grewal, tells CNBC."

There are already some forks of Tornado Cash. Private bridges like 0xMonero's 0xTIP and blockbend are also options.

Yes. American citizens will be mostly affected by the sanctions. But other countries could restrict their people from using the Tornado.Cash service, especially if they have close ties to the US. I think people in Russia, Venezuela, China, and other foreign countries won't have a problem using the aforementioned mixer protocol. Besides, it's still possible to use Tornado.Cash directly through ETH smart contracts no matter where you are in the world. That's thanks to the decentralized and open source nature of Tornado.Cash. The code is widely available for anyone to copy, modify and/or redistribute, so I wouldn't be surprised if a Tornado.Cash clone is born on a completely different blockchain to challenge sanctions imposed by the US government. Just my thoughts

The article stated is for the American citizens but for other countries they can still use or the people in America can find a way to use, the Cryptocurrency industry still needs mixing protocols/services the way things are being centralized in the Crypto industry, mixers support and adhere to decentralization which is the core teaching of Cryptocurrency

if it is used only for money laundering of course it is better destroyed. I'm also clueless about these mixing services, they work in terms of appa which makes them widely used? some say this service is used for those who want to transact in secret, that means it is made in privacy, but how can this only be used for illegal things?

Exactly. It's like privacy is a crime, when it shouldn't be that way. There are law-abiding citizens who need privacy in order to protect their transactions from prying eyes. Especially, businesses who have utmost sensitive information. This situation needs to be taken to the court, for the good of our privacy and the crypto/Blockchain industry. That's assuming the defendant wins the case. If he/she/they lose, then it'll be bye-bye to privacy for good.

The US government started with the Blender.io mixer and now it went against Tornado.Cash. But that won't stop it from taking action against other centralized and non-custodial mixers. These are bad times we're living into, so expect the unexpected. Just my opinion

https://twitter.com/PouriaAzimzade1/status/1558527845177204740
"This is no joke !
Celsius CEO free and rich
Voyger CEO free and rich
Sifu free and rich
Do Kwon free and rich

Tarnado cash dev is in prison !
Lesson : you’re allowed to scam people and steal their money but don’t ever think about giving them privacy.. "

They did close the GitHub repo, but someone else still managed to duplicate the source code. This shows us that governments efforts are futile when trying to destroy something as open source and decentralized as Tornado.Cash. It would've been best to target individuals directly than the mixer protocol itself. If we let the government get away with this, then it'll be the end of the whole crypto/Blockchain industry as we speak. What makes you think the US government won't take a similar action to Bitcoin or Ethereum if it deems them a threat to the very existence of the US Dollar?

I think the US overreaching its authority will result in legal action by crypto proponents. Taking this to the court would be the only way to defend the future of open source and crypto/Blockchain tech. Otherwise, you can say goodbye to privacy coins, mixers, and possibly even traditional cryptocurrencies like BTC and ETH. Who knows what the future holds for the entire industry? Just my opinion

Monero is fine but it doesn't have smart contract functionality and cannot work with Ethereum, BNB chain, Polygon etc. That's why using 0xMonero is necessary. It can mix and bridge privately from Ethereum to BNB chian.

Well, decentralized mixing protocols are often used by bad people to do money laundering, but that is not the purpose of it.
The purpose of mixing tool is to ensure our privacy is safe. It is not the mixing tool is bad, but the people who use it with bad purpose are.
Monero is a good privacy coin, we can keep our identity private without external mixing tool.

Haven't they caught one of the tornado.cash devs? It is as simple as that. They may not catch everybody who uses the platform but they can close down the project's repo (which they already did I believe), throw all the devs to jail and it is over just like that. The project will eventually die off because there won't be anybody developing and promoting it. Nobody will ever know its existence.

If any blockchain related project is still available to us, it is because the US government allows it.

If that's the case, then the developer must pay a heavy price. But not everyone who contributed towards the Tornado.Cash project are in the same boat. The US sanctions will now raise a red flag to anyone who used the mixer protocol even if the intentions weren't malicious at all. I guess we'll be seeing the authorities knocking down on Vitalik Buterin's door soon just because he used the mixer to donate money to Ukraine. This is all messed up, so unless the situation is challenged at the court, things will only get worse for crypto/Blockchain tech. It's a dangerous precedent that will mark the industry forever. If crypto advocates fail on defending this emerging industry, then everything we've fought for will vanish in an instant. I hope there's light at the end of the tunnel so crypto can fulfill its mission of bringing banking to the unbanked. Just my thoughts

https://fortune.com/2022/08/25/tornado-cash-developer-russian-fsb-linked-company/
Developer at Treasury-sanctioned Tornado Cash worked for company linked to Russian security agency
"Alexey Pertsev, developer of cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash, was formerly employed by a company linked to Russian security agency FSB, according to a report from intelligence firm Kharon."

It's for educational purposes, so I don't see why the code can be re-uploaded in the first place. But that's up to the government to decide. I really am against censoring code, especially when the same represents freedom of speech. How you will use that code (either for legitimate or illegitimate purposes) depends entirely on you. Again, I believe the US should've sanctioned the individuals using Tornado.Cash for illicit purposes than the mixer protocol itself. Everything's messed up now, so I don't think developers will dare to make another privacy solution on ETH (or any other chain) ever again.

I hope crypto advocates and industry leaders stand up against the decision to censor the use of Tornado.Cash for the good of crypto/Blockchain tech. Coin Center mentioned it will be taking this to the court, so I think there may be light at the end of the tunnel after all. Just my thoughts

I think under the for teaching and research disclaim might let our dear professor scoot free from the sanction by the U.S. Government. Unless the government can proof it causes harm by simply observing the code which is just a bunch of combinations of 1 and 0.

Is that allowed?
https://cryptoslate.com/professor-re-uploads-tornado-cash-code-to-github-for-research-purposes/
"Professor re-uploads Tornado Cash code to GitHub for research purposes
A professor of Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University re-uploaded Tornado Cash and Tornado Nova source codes to GitHub, saying he has been using the code for teaching purposes."

I think 0xMonero is a good alternative to Monero because 0xMR has smart contract functionality.

The Tornado mixing protocol wasn't a scam. It was just sanctioned by the US because of money laundering concerns. Smart contracts can still be accessed through the main Ethereum blockchain, but be aware that your ETH address could get flagged if governments manage to link your identity with it. The source code is open for anyone to review or modify to their hearts' content, so it's possible to "revive" the front-end (website) to interact with Tornado.Cash contracts directly. But even so, developers wouldn't risk themselves mirroring the website because they could face prosecution from the government.

This is sad because now people can't enjoy privacy on the ETH chain. Innocent people will now be treated just like a criminal who used the mixing protocol before. It would've been best for the US to sanction the persons using the Tornado.Cash mixer directly than the protocol itself. Someone said about Coin Center taking this to the court, so only time will tell us if we'll ever see Tornado.Cash or a similar privacy solution on the ETH chain again. Just my thoughts

I don't understand why you think the Torn coin is scam? The fact that the Tornado.Cash mixer was used by scammers to launder their money is not a reason to call the coin scam. We all know that the dollar is also used by scammers and other criminal structures, but no one calls USD scam.

Tornado was a scam tool as well. I hope that binance will be delisting this token from its exchange site. This token being used by so many criminals. Binance was also doing shady thing by accepting the scam token that used by criminals. So many people's money being stolen got laundered through torando. That means binance shall delist such token from its exchange site.

It's possible, that's how bitcoin mixers are born, because there is a demand for it. But only the tough one are able to survived as of this time.

And for those who are thinking to be the next "Tornado Cash", they will just have to out think the government and to not get track somewhere in the world, caught off guard and now facing a jail time. Monero was smart to do that as developers made a fork recently that will make it harder to trace for privacy reason.

In 2022, many top projects have become scams, from LUNA and now it's Tornado Cash,
even though Torn has also been listed on Binance, and is one of the altcoins with good performance,
but unfortunately maybe Binance will delist this coin, yes, just wait just the date, if you still have the asset,
then my advice is to sell it.

It's the reality, Hackera would mostly resort in mixing their hacked funds to launder it also to make their hacked funds "clean" and spend it. There's a multiple hacking incident happened and mixing services such as Tornado cash are being mentioned on the news being the gateway to launder the money. There are still "real users" of this service but I think they don't use the service regularly like what hackers does.

Regardless of the desire of the government, there is a demand for such mixers, respectively, there will be a supply. So soon there will be a new "Tornado.Cash", which will really not only be decentralized, but also have an anonymous development team, which will not allow the government to control it.

millions of funds keep getting missed out of thin air mate I really think tornado cash is been used by lots of hackers out there than real people and at such it helps prevent stolen funds from been untraceable and that way someone like normad can track hackers account more easily

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



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.

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.

Tornado Cash looks like a scapegoat for the US govt to send a message toward any privacy coin and mixing service out there. They could have gone to ETH, the one was behind Tornado Cash as a smart contract in its system but they didn't. Because they know the backlash from the public is bigger if they've gone to ETH. So they picked the easy prey, Tornado Cash to make an example. The reaction from the ETH community is indifferent. Rally for the cause of decentralization/censorship resistance and support for Tornado Cash is low too. We're fucked if the US govt decides to push more if we do not make out stand here, against the Tornado Cash case.

Some projects are anonymously done and I think theres a way to asses an anonymous project, by its development which can be observed on Github for that project.  You are right,  investors dont like anon team but there are who invest on tech if they saw a great deal of potential for that project.  Its gonna be hard to trust anon projects but if its solid we can see its development on its actual market standing.

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.

Tell that to Ethereum which has a publicly-known founder (Vitalik Buterin) and developers. How can Web 3.0 achieve its full potential if developers' identities are not anonymous? The same way the US government was able to easily take down the Tornado.Cash mixing protocol (even though smart contracts are still running on the ETH blockchain), the same could happen with ETH if the government deems it as a platform for money laundering and tax evasion. Could you imagine if Vitalik goes to prison just like Tornado.Cash's developer? It would be a complete disaster for ETH.

I think that's why Bitcoin's Satoshi Nakamoto didn't disclose his identity. He wanted protect himself (and the project) from government prosecution. Unless crypto/Blockchain developers put decentralization/censorship-resistance first, the whole industry will be doomed. It will be controlled by venture capitalists (VCs) and institutional investors, making crypto no different than traditional banking. If the US was able to successfully sanction a "decentralized" mixing protocol, imagine what would be of other non-custodial mixers and privacy coins? Just my thoughts

On Ethereum it is not enough to post the source code. Ethereum DApps need server hosting, front end design and hosting, and in this case hosting on IPFS using multiple mirrors and RPCs that won't censor users accessing the contract. It's a lot more complicated than forking something like Monero. It might make more sense to use 0xMonero going forward because Tornado Cash has a big target on its back and people are afraid to use it now. 0xMR is a microcap and has an anonymous team and code, so it's a lot safer to mix with.

Someone has to got the source code, i am pretty sure about that. But i doubt that Bitcoin or any other protocol threats Fiat's existence ever. They are very much created for different purposes and regulations already came for Tornado Cash. They will come for others that want to launder money as well.

They arrested one of the developers, forced the likes of github, Discord, to delete all the activity, and this has seen reduced activity in the platform too. So their sanctioning seems to have been successful so far

How many users will be able to access the service directly though the smart contract when the website is offline?

Mixing services have always been doomed.

Ideally, all developers and the team of decentralized applications should be anonymous, otherwise all decentralization will eventually turn into centralized. As for mixing, as long as there is a need for anonymity, such services will continue to work, but at the same time they will become inaccessible to control.

It's been a long time that I have been saying that Monero and other privacy coins builders, team or CEO needs to be hidden, imagine no one knows who Tornado Cash CEO is, the teams should vanish like Nakamoto.

Decentralized would never be prioritized by the Government and totally opposite of its definition.  Crypto mixer goals arent that bad but we cant deny the fact that there will be malice and negative feedback on this as it can be used by scammers.  Privacy is important and government honor that.  However,  scammers are blending in on this particular utility to mask and camouflage their crimes.  So in short,  there will be a massive debate for this matter if this gonna work in long term or should be stopped already.

The protocol itself is open source and decentralized, so anyone can easily "revive" the mixer if there's enough interest into it. However, for some people, it may not be worth the risk as they could easily face prosecution from the US government (either through the US directly or through an allied country). While I don't support money laundering, the fact that the source code was removed from GitHub should be a reason of concern for both privacy and decentralization advocates. The government could easily shut down other mixers or "De-Fi" platforms if they're hosted on centralized servers. To achieve true decentralization and censorship-resistance, decentralized applications' web interface (mixers, lending protocols, etc) should be hosted on P2P networks (eg: IPFS) and use a decentralized domain name (preferably on-chain like ENS or Unstoppable.Domains). Even the source code should be hosted on a decentralized alternative to GitHub such as Radicle. But developers don't care about true decentralization these days, because they're only thinking about the money. Not only that, but making something completely decentralized would not be as easy to use for the average person.

Recently, the US' Secretary of State hinted the possibility of taking down other crypto mixers as well (read his tweet here). If decentralized isn't prioritized, then I'm afraid I'll be the end of ChipMixer, CashShuffle (BCH), CashFusion (BCH), and even privacy coins like DASH and Monero. We're going to have to see how this will end as crypto/Blockchain tech becomes more popular by the day. Just my opinion

DEFI was just a gimmick, the fact that if mostly of defi were actually centralized. The latest news https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/08/12/an-alleged-tornado-cash-developer-was-arrested-are-you-next/

I have been predicting it to happen. It seems like more the developers of tornado being searched by the police. Tornado is still being developed by the developers. These developers become target by regulators and police. They were contributing to the tornado's existence will be jailed.

Justin Sun got banned
https://twitter.com/justinsuntron/status/1558397647165091840

"I’m officially blocked by @AaveAave  since someone sent 0.1 eth randomly from @TornadoCash  to me.
@StaniKulechov
"
https://twitter.com/sassal0x/status/1558326040920936448
"sassal.eth now blocked from using the official Aave front-end because someone sent 0.1 ETH to my address via Tornado Cash "

This is the world of decentralized finance. lol

Even some of the centralized coin mixers of bitcoin were forced to shut down by the governments because they found the platform used for money laundering but we can't really do anything about it since government has the power to do whatever the things they wanted to do then they will execute it. When the platform is decentralized and no central authority behind the entity then its not possible to stop them.

While Tornado Cash looks like a devil in disguise since this news came up days ago this project start trending on coinmarketcap lately, I expected a almighty crash after the news but it doesn't look affected, my question is Monero can be compared to Tornado Cash so why isn't Monero nailed as well.

https://www.fiod.nl/arrest-of-suspected-developer-of-tornado-cash/
"On Wednesday 10 August, the FIOD arrested a 29-year-old man in Amsterdam. He is suspected of involvement in concealing criminal financial flows and facilitating money laundering through the mixing of cryptocurrencies through the decentralised Ethereum mixing service Tornado Cash. Multiple arrests are not ruled out. These advanced technologies, such as decentralised organisations that may facilitate money laundering are receiving extra attention from the FIOD. Also in the cryptocurrency domain, the FIOD stands for a safe financial Netherlands and investigates with effect and impact. Today the suspect is brought before the examining judge."

https://www.theblock.co/post/162928/dydx-confirms-blocking-user-accounts-tied-to-tornado-cash?
dYdX confirms blocking user accounts tied to Tornado Cash
"dYdX said it banned user accounts with a history of using Tornado Cash.
The exchange also clarified that it inaccurately blocked several accounts, which it later unblocked."

I guess for those domains that are related to crypto, they can do this depending on where they'll buy that domain. Tornado cash is now closed and dismissed by the US government and we'll still see a series of these closures when big funds will always go through these websites and they'll be tracked down for sure until they're closed. And another sanction is that, they'll never be able to operate again unless they come out with another name or if they're allowed to do that.

Good story about events with tornado cache in this thread
https://twitter.com/BowTiedIguana/status/1556683120002314241

American law reacts very quickly to such events and violators face large prison sentences and fines.
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-31/subtitle-B/chapter-V/part-501?toc=1

https://twitter.com/0xJim/status/1557035689425895425
"Max chaos — someone is sending TC’d ETH to big doxxed wallets like Shaq, Beeple, Randi Zuckerberg, Ben Horowitz, Brian Armstrong, etc"

Umm, that doesn't sound right. Tornado Cash did not blacklist any particular address within its protocol. @poodle63, Do you have any news about it? As far as I know, the only thing that could get blacklisted is a particular address that is owned by some entity, like for example USDC.


One of the many things that empower Bitcoin is its being run by a lot of nodes, which increases the decentralization. So, any centralized entity will get a hard time covering it up. It explains why running your own Bitcoin node is beneficial, the problem is likely if a centralized git repository like Github takes a part of it, like in this came. But I believe, that is a small thing that can be prevented within Bitcoin ecosystem.

I strongly agree that the developer of the mixing service should remain anonymous to avoid government intervention. Regardless of the user's purpose of using the mixing service whether it's money laundering, etc., I don't agree with government intervention on crypto services globally.

US dont want to associate their people or traders affiliated to thise mixers like tornado cash but for me, they cant stopped them, they will just use it again probably use different account or use another network or vpn to keep using tornado cash.

Actually mixers are being used illegaly thats why they are being like that. Well who dont gonna get alarm right? Lets agree to disagree, some uses it for privacy but with its particular usage, scammers gonna love that.

So much for a "decentralized" mixing protocol. Being able to blacklist certain users, makes Tornado.Cash no different than a centralized mixing service. The developer should've chosen to stay anonymous in the first place so none of this would've happened. It's a pity since most crypto projects have publicly-known developers and/or founders. As long as governments are able to identify the persons behind the project, decentralization/censorship-resistance will never be achieved.

Now the "decentralized" mixing protocol's website has been shutdown, along with the project's GitHub repository. The source code is nowhere to be found, so unless someone has a backup, Tornado.Cash's original vision to bring privacy to the ETH chain would be doomed. The ability to take down the source code easily, makes me wonder if someday governments will do the same with Bitcoin if they find it too threatening to Fiat's existence. I believe the war is just beginning, so hold on tight as this is going to be a wild ride. Just my opinion

First of all.

Did you ever read about a mixing service getting shut down by US Government? There has some several news the mixing service got shutdown. Even my self is the one signature participating from the mixing service who are getting shutdown.

That's why most the owner of Mixing Service is staying Anonymous. There has some scenario, while the government opening a mixing service by them self to track money laundry of their target.

Did you remember axie's hacked case? The hacker was using this tool to laundering all of money stolen from axie infinity treasury. I remember in some news tornado cash able to blacklisted such address from using its protocol that means if there was an entity behind it. The dev was still behind that tool. I do aware if so many hackers were using this tool. I do agree with decision that already taken by US. That needs to be sanctioned.

According to CNBC, the US' Treasury Department sanctioned on-chain mixing service Tornado.cash because of "money laundering" activities. Here's the link to the article: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/08/crypto-mixing-service-tornado-cash-blacklisted-by-treasury-department-.html

I fail to see how successful the US government would be at sanctioning a decentralized mixing protocol, since there's no single entity behind it. You can't hold someone accountable for patronizing money laundering activities if everything's decentralized by design. Even if the website goes down, users can still access the smart contract directly without limitations.

Am I missing something here? Does this mean all mixing protocols/services are doomed? Your input will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.