Bitcoin Forum

Recent U.S. sanctions against cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash have sparked a debate within the crypto community on whether the ban compromises users’ ability to operate anonymously.

Earlier this week, the Treasury Department imposed sanctions against Tornado Cash for helping hackers launder over $7 billion worth of virtual currency. The agency said the mixer service allowed cyber criminal groups, including North Korean-backed hackers, to use its platform to launder the proceeds of cyber crimes.

Does that mean that all the privacy coins will be banned and regulated? Even those having own no KYC decentralized exchanges, like Crypton (https://crp.is)?

Privacy coins like Monero will be banned but privacy tokens like 0xMonero cannot be banned because they exist as assets on Ethereum and don't need to be traded on centralized exchanges. Anyone can trade 0xMR on any EVM chain AMM without KYC or censorship, on 9 different chains in fact. The future of privacy is on Ethereum, you just can't see that through the fog of regulation right now.

The fact that if it doesn't matter what kind of privacy platform or protocol being developed and the developers behind it can always be jailed by regulators due to providing a tool that always related with criminal. It may become the end for privacy coin but oh i forgot that basically privacy coin already ended started when so many privacy coins worth nothing and starting to disappear. There are a few that are still exist in the crypto but they still there caused by people used it as investment.

Hmm, well, I do not know how you can ban coins like Monero. Okay, recently these coins were delisted from popular exchanges, however, there are a number of anonymous exchanges where you can buy it.

Well, it's the government and exchanges will be disallowing for their listing while those exchanges that are complaint to the government will just halt its trade and will delist it.
It's true that there are still exchanges where it is still listed and the government can't do nothing with it, they can command certain exchanges to have it delisted but they can't dictate it to all.

If I got you right, Crypton CRP privacy coin from Utopia p2p will also remain available in any case? Own blockchain, decentralization..

How decentralized it's crypton and utopia project? if it's really 100% decentralized, any sanctions wouldn't affect it since anyone can still use it. The privacy coins price are based on demand and supply, so since the sanctions are mainly focused to privacy coins, it might decrease the price due to panic and less demand. IMO holding privacy coins for long term isn't a good choice due to government always enforce submit KYC that would kill privacy concern.

Privacy coins are indeed very vulnerable to being used for crime because it makes it easier for them to transact with secrets. but I don't think privacy coins are bad as long as some coins are mined and used properly as privacy coins it's okay. and regulations I think are better owned by the state, it will make us feel safe in transacting on privacy coins.

I think that the demand for privacy DApps and tokens will increase dramatically from this moment forward. People are starting to realize how important privacy is on public blockchains and that's why I am dedicating 20% of my portfolio to privacy project investments. Some projects I hold are RAIL, 0xMR, and I'm looking to invest in spinner cash on the internet computer if they release a token.

Thank you, I think this project is very reliable. I mean the Utopia p2p. As far as I know, the ecosystem is decentralized, and no personal data is needed to use the exchange. Moreover, the moment is organically growing and developing, even despite the fall of bitcoin and its impact on the crypto world.

I see what you are trying to do here. You are trying to shill some unknow exchanged called crypton and it's shitcoin. Most members didn't notice this but on taking a look at your posting history, it's all about crypton  ::)

I even doubt if that exchange is legit.

Nice try but not quite.

Wrong again. Not all the exchanges can be affected by governments. That's exactly why no kyc decentralized exchanges exist. They can't be banned or forced delisting something.

Nice try at the end though some speculation really creates panic especially when we are talking about privacy coin. Though the government can’t totally control it but once they take action, probably this can still affect the project. With the current pressure from the government targeting privacy coins, I hope they are ready for this and will still fight for the project, the investor should take cautious for now and once in doubt don’t invest yet.

Almost everything in the crypto industry is regulated now, not just private coins. Private coins have been subject to delisting for several years now, since 2018. Since that time, the crypto industry has been heavily regulated and regularly banned. This will continue to evolve. Cryptocurrencies are being used on an increasing scale in today's world. No one but crypto users want privacy and anonymity. Therefore, states will promote everything private and anonymous by regulating these areas or replacing them completely with centralized and transparent counterparts, such as CBDC. It is suspected that cryptocurrencies in 10-15 years will be completely regulated.

And only Monero will be the one standing, but not sure how many exchanges are still supporting it, as you have said, majority of the exchanges, top tier have delisted them due to government pressure and because of the regulations.

Although there could be some individuals who still want privacy, it's gong to be difficult to maintain at present day as everyone is required to do a full KYC on exchanges now. For sure you can buy personal info on some black market, but who knows, still exchanges will try to be one step of the game by requiring not just selfie, but a full interview.

Tornado cash team are known, stupid of them, if a privacy coin is going to survive anything it has to be 100% private, all teams have to be strictly Anonymous, there will be no way to stop them this way but instead they reveal who they are to the world.

Sad to hear that.. Then crypto will lose its sense almost fully. I'm tired of being totally controlled from all the sides. Okay, and what will happen to the countries that don't put taxes on crypto? They will also check every step?

Hmmm, to be honest - I haven't heard much about such a coin. For me, the most famous is probably monero. But to be honest -I don't think that's the case. There must be some ways to solve this problem.

DEX can be taken down by regulators easily. A few times dex got taken down and developers got jailed. All of exchange sites can be affected by the governments. We have international law. As long as the exchange site was violating the law and it can be taken down by the government. Even tornado can be taken down easily. Are you expecting anything that being decentralized can't be taken down?

Please let me know, how can one find and imprison anonymous developers? Let's try to play this action with Utopia p2p project, where no one knows whose child is it.

Tornado Cash is often used by some only as a legitimate way to protect privacy.
However, the US government says it encourages illicit activity, including fraud and cybercrime.

How it's can be anonymous if they included their company name on the bottom page? it's 1984 Group LP.

If you check on WHOIS there's some information about the sites revealed. I don't think this project is totally 100% anonymous considering they're closed source, no one can verify the legitimate of the code.

I think not many users are using Utopia and there's no such detective put all his effort to investigate this site to find the owner.

Without suspecting it, the authorities and regulators have created an artificial noise around private coins, thereby increasing their value :) People know that in any case they will have access to exchanges where these coins will continue to be traded. And that's great.

What does the address give to you? Do you think it's impossible to fill in the random address or pay for the registration and never appear there? Have you ever checked that crypto can be used anonymously and everything can be bought and paid for? :) If there's still no data about the devs, it means no one ever found them. And I don't know the actual number of users, but number of nodes is more than 30 000.. Make your conclusions.

It is enough to check this address on maps in order to understand that there is a residential area in this place in Edinburgh. It would be too stupid to use real data. Especially for developers of such a large-scale project. =)) lol

I won't divide them like this. Criminals are everywhere in any case, and mixers are used by those people also, that want to simply hide their transactions. Like for example with Bitcoin. Or another way is using no kyc decentralized exchanges like Crypton exchange (https://crp.is). It's just their choice.

People use mixing services to tolerate the lack of privacy of the cryptocurrency design. They did it for various reason, but to claim that mixing services are usually used for illegal transaction are unproven. As matter of fact, cryptocurrency mixing services are only used by criminals by a small percentage. We can see based on Chainalysis research, that the usage by criminals is a few compared to the whole usage of a mixer. Take a look at https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/crypto-mixers/.

While in the other hand, a privacy coin being enforced/used to protect privacy is what the technology offers. But in reality, there will always be a consequence of it being used for wrongdoing.

that's already proven. Bunch of hackers are using tornado for money laundering purpose. US already taken the right step to give it sanction and then arresting any parties who have relationship or become a part from the tornado cash.
People are always arguing about privacy but im not sure if they are not even seeing if the platform being used by so many criminals. Those who didn't like that to be taken down must be supporting the criminal as well.

First of all, Tornado.Cash is NOT a privacy coin but rather a mixer protocol built within the ETH blockchain. Second, the sanctions were only effective against the mixer's frontend interface (because it was hosted on a centralized server) and the GitHub repository itself. But they didn't have any effect on the smart contracts powering the mixer itself because of their decentralized and censorship-resistant design. We've seen how the US has been taking a strict stance against crypto/Blockchain tech, especially when it claims that most people use it for "illegal" activities (money laundering, tax evasion, etc). I wouldn't be surprised if the government takes further actions against mixers and even privacy coins themselves in order to help "legitimize" the industry as much as possible. Some countries might copy the US whenever they seem fit to do so. Others will simply turn their backs completely against crypto (like China and Russia) in order to stay in power.

What matters is that the whole space remains decentralized and censorship-resistant so that it can counteract governments' efforts against it. Centralization risks will only make it easier for governments to shut down the whole thing. While I do believe privacy coins and mixers will face further scrutiny in the long run, they won't disappear because of the way they're designed. Most (if not all) projects are open-sourced these days, so there's nothing stopping anyone from making forks in order to help protect our privacy. Considering that crypto has reached this far, I'd say it's too late for governments to do anything about it. Just my opinion :)

I think the problem is that you could never know the intention of someone who is using privacy coin or mixing services and that creates a problem. There could be many people who are not doing anything illegal and still using these services, and they can be allowed to continue, and there could be a lot of people who use it for illegal services and they could be banned from using these services.

But the end deal is, you do not know which one is using it for legal and which one is using it for illegal services which creates a big trouble for everyone involved. That is why people are trying to sanction and ban it completely, hurting people who did nothing wrong.

But similar to tx from Tornado Cash, gov could force exchanges to orphan new ETH blocks that contain 0xMonero transactions. Since the grand majority of ETH mining nodes are on CEX it is not that far fetched.  :-X
They banned a smart contract ! Newly mined blocks could be just around the corner

On the other hand Monero will live forever ! It's market value will suffer but the gov understood it cannot be stopped !

The US government didn't "ban" the Tornado.Cash smart contract because that would be practically impossible to achieve (the ETH blockchain is decentralized, after all). What they did was sanction the mixer, causing centralized service providers to shut down its GitHub repository and frontend interface. Without the source code and a web GUI where you could easily access Tornado.Cash, adoption would be virtually non-existent. Only geeks and crypto veterans would still be able to use the mixer by interacting with smart contracts directly. What the US government did is a precedent of what's coming in the future.

I'm afraid the US and other countries will exert more pressure against mixers and privacy coins, as they move an inch closer to launching their own Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). After all, governments wouldn't want people using decentralized tech that would minimize their authority/sovereignty. It's possible privacy coins will stop being traded at centralized exchanges, while mixers will be outlawed for good. You'd still be able to use such services because of their decentralized and censorship-resistant design. But it wouldn't be worth the risk as you could face jail time or be required to pay a fine. It's a dark future ahead for crypto/Blockchain tech, so we should be prepared for the worst. Just my thoughts ;D

https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/09/28/the-problem-tornado-cash-raises-about-base-layer-censorship-on-ethereum/
The Problem Tornado Cash Raises About Base Layer Censorship on Ethereum
Requiring validators and others to censor blocks would be an unwarranted expansion of sanctions law.

https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/09/29/how-to-deal-with-tornado-cash-without-using-sanctions/
How to Stop Illegal Activity on Tornado Cash (Without Using Sanctions)
Rather than sanctioning code, U.S. authorities should have targeted the human intermediaries.

Privacy coins will exist as long as the people using it, but there are chances for them to get delisted from regulated exchanges but never on decentralized exchanges. Coin mixers have to run very carefully and that is what we need to understand from the sanction.

Well, yes. That is why, when all the popular exchanges began to delist Montero, this coin was immediately added to many decentralized exchanges. For example, Crypton exchange from the Utopia p2p project.

Liquidity problem must become the main concern once it happens. I know that people can use p2p but it's not as fast as when you are using centralized exchange site to exchange your privacy coin to the another form like stable token.
Remember that if it's not all decentralized exchange site was also supporting the monero coin. Monero must be wrapped first to be able being used in the decentralized exchange site.
I don't like use this coin for p2p transaction.

That's what I meant. And besides taking down the web GUI the obligated all the CEX they could to block accounts connected to Tornado Cash transactions. That is indeed a precedent, and a very dangerous one. The future doesn't look to bright if it goes the same route.


I doubt the US will issue CBDCs. That will truly show they lack of democracy and most important a transparency of money printing. Not so good for business.


Very dark, pessimistic projection but I have to say I feel the same way. Land of the free my ass !


My point exactly ! Long live POS and it's endless capacity to be leveraged by authorities !

With Ethereum switching to PoS, it becomes easier for the US government to force validators (staking nodes on the Blockchain) to censor transactions related to Tornado.Cash. Considering that the biggest holders of ETH are centralized exchanges, "killing" privacy on the Blockchain should be a no-brainer. This would be the beginning of the end of ETH as we speak. So much for a decentralized platform built for "censorship-resistant" applications. I just hope other blockchains prioritize decentralization in order to prevent stuff like this from happening in the future.

Privacy is a human right, but governments are fighting against it for complete control. They intensify their attacks on crypto/Blockchain tech because it's something they can't control (decentralized). I guess we're going to have to turn ourselves to Monero for true privacy without limitations. Just my opinion :)

I think that all coin mixers will be banned sooner or later.. And the only way out for me is using no kyc decentralized exchanges as they seem not to be affected anyhow. Moreover, you remain anonymous there what is very important these days.

Privacy coins have come under intense scrutiny from regulators around the world in a bid to crackdown on black markets fueled by privacy coins. Nowadays, privacy is especially important for owners of digital assets. No KYC - no control a user’s funds

I even wonder what regulators can do with confidential coins if such transactions are usually impossible to trace. Everything is completely anonymous there.

Privacy coins mostly used for money laundering purpose or another bad things yet sometimes people are also using it to keep their identity or make others unable to trace them. You shall not feel surprised to see that if government was also targetting it as well. The fact that if these days everything related with anonymity is always being used for illegal activities. That's why government was putting their eyes on it.

Just because it's a privacy coin, doesn't mean it will be solely used for "illegal activities". There are a small minority of people that legitimately use privacy coins to help protect their utmost sensitive transactions from third parties. But governments quickly target privacy coins because they don't want people to experience true financial freedom. These entities want something they can control at their will. While Bitcoin cannot be controlled by governments or third parties, transactions made on the Blockchain are publicly visible by anyone. This makes it easier for governments to prosecute people if they suspect certain transactions are suspicious. But we cannot say the same about privacy coins such as Monero or Zcash.

Tornado.Cash may have not been a privacy coin, but it was a mixer which aimed to achieve the same purpose (which was the anonymization of transactions on the ETH blockchain). Sanctioning the mixer was a breeze simply because developers' identities were known and both the source code and the frontend interface were hosted on centralized servers. If it wasn't by that, it would've been impossible to take any action against it. At least, the Tornado.Cash smart contracts on the ETH blockchain are untouched. The GitHub repository was restored, so there's nothing stopping anyone from various forks to help protect people's right to privacy. Just my thoughts ;D

As more people are drawn to either mixers or privacy coins, the chance of tracing transactions becomes exponentially difficult. If a privacy coin, mixer or base-layer privacy solution gains mainstream adoption, it could have greater resistance to censorship.

Omg.. Really? I prefer privacy coins for the only one reason - taxes on crypto earnings in my country are too high, so I simply don't want to lose a big part of my parallel income. Privacy coins let me hide this information from govt. Am I a criminal?

Mixers and privacy coins don't provide same service and same experience. They give different levels of privacy.

Governments are stricter with mixers and gamblers but they are more easily managed privacy coins. If I don't have illegal capital source and use it to buy cryptocurrency for moneey laundering, I will not choose mixers or privacy coins. The longer I use it, the more risk I will get with governments.

Some exchanges and platforms have their public or internal criteria to mark your account if they detect suspicious things from your deposits. I also don't want to get my account being frozen or suspended for investigation.

I see another problem in this situation. A scammer can send coins to any wallet from a sanctioned address through services that allow you to bypass restrictions and the owner of the wallet will have big problems, as the exchange or other custodial service can block transactions.

Most privacy coins don't have privacy by default, so governments are much softer towards them than it's the case with mixers. But you can bet that they will target privacy coins that enforce privacy at the protocol level. Monero would be considered one of those privacy coins whose blockchain network enforces anonymity in every way. It's the reason why we've seen so many exchanges de-list XMR like there's no tomorrow. They're afraid governments will come after them because of money laundering and/or tax evasion concerns.

KYC/AML is starting to be the norm on the crypto industry, so I wouldn't be surprised if governments continue to fight privacy with an "iron fist". The Blender and Tornado.Cash mixers were only the beginning. Just wait until crypto becomes even more popular than before for things to get worse. At least, we know privacy won't be going anywhere. As long as decentralization prevails, there should be nothing to worry about. Just my opinion :)

yes i notice this too the big exchange or other Centralized Exchange that using "KYC/AML" to use their product is start to delist XMR Zcash and other type of  cryptocoin that privacy first

The issue with Tornado Cash is something that the community needs to put its eyes on. This is basically what could happen to privacy centric coins. As long as the ethereum network is censoring this sort of coins and other transactions it loses all its purpose and the guidance of the main Satoshi's idea. If the community accepts this, the real purpose of cryptos has been broken.

No one will ask the cryptocurrency community for permission to block a site with a smart contract and addresses.
This is one of the tests, then the blocking process will go faster. The crypto community needs to understand the risks and store their assets on more decentralized blockchains.

Exactly. Asking for permission to approve or disapprove transactions would make the blockchain a permissioned system. This would be similar to how traditional banking works today. In crypto land, everything's about decentralization to help ensure people can become their own bank no matter where they are in the world. Unfortunately, some cryptocurrencies have turned centralized in order to please the regulators. The developers behind such cryptocurrencies are afraid the government will go after them by embracing decentralization/censorship-resistance. They need to make the Blockchain centralized so that it becomes easier for governments to "enforce the rule of law".

You can see why ETH turned to PoS quickly after the Tornado.Cash mixer was sanctioned by the US government. Now the cryptocurrency is heavily controlled by exchanges that are obliged to comply with sanctions laws. That means transactions that are related to Tornado.Cash would not be processed by such entities. The same fate awaits privacy coins if they decide to abandon decentralization just to please the regulators. It's a dark future ahead for our privacy in crypto land, so unless people step up to the game, we won't be going anywhere soon. Just my thoughts ;D

Companies and governments are in constant pursuit of people’s financial data. Hence, more and more people are turning to cryptocurrencies as a way to escape this scrutiny. Although Bitcoin and other altcoins do offer financial security by way of decentralization, they don’t offer the same financial security as privacy coins, since every transaction is publicly viewable on the blockchain.

Look, you can be suspected for anything. How can anyone know what exactly do you do with your money? Do you play in online casinos or do you trade on the dark market? Or you're a simple trader? It's impossible to find out. Only if you do everything in one place. So it's not the real point.

I wouldn’t say that. Since the issue with Tornado Cash is a case where the fundamental principle of crypto – decentralization – is being questioned, privacy coins won’t go anywhere ever, however, they may become fewer. Due to the probable scrutiny and restrictions, privacy coins developers will think twice whether to launch any.

Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic took the world by storm, governments have been taking an aggressive approach towards collecting as much data/information from their citizens as possible. Their excuse is that they're doing this to help prevent the spread of the virus, reduce criminal activity, among others. But we all know their intentions. You ain't seen nothing yet with the Tornado.Cash sanctions. The US government have started with mixers, but they will escalate towards privacy coins when crypto/Blockchain tech becomes more popular than ever. What makes you think other governments won't do the same?

I'm afraid we're entering the end of the privacy era. Sooner or later, governments will have complete control of what we do in daily life. It'll be a complete surveillance system where governments cannot only see your movements, but also your personal, medical, and financial information. With CBDCs, you can say goodbye to privacy for good. At least, decentralized cryptocurrencies will be there to save the day. That is if they're able to remain decentralized enough to withstand the test of time. With so many coins shifting to PoS, it doesn't seem crypto will remain decentralized for long. Only Bitcoin will remain decentralized, while the rest will "bow" themselves to the regulators. Who knows what the future holds for both crypto and our right to privacy? Just my thoughts ;D

It's no secret that governments (in this case, the US government) are always on the lookout for privacy coins. Even in my own nation, one of the largest exchanges decided to delist Tornado Cash, Monero, and Zcash on November 3rd. I believe it is not us who have not been prepared for ultimate openness, but rather our governments' fear of losing control of our people. These projects are failing to achieve their idealistic goals. I'm not sure when they'll be applied in real life because governments won't let them. We all know that knives have two sides, thus no matter how valuable privacy coins are, they can be exploited as tools by criminals. Let's see how things proceed.

Privacy coin seems to be loosing her relevance in the scheme of things as the prying eyes of the government through SEC is clubbing down through sanctions on platforms that in any way assist internet fraud in the actualization of their aims. The regulations coming into the industry may give reasons for privacy projects to be limited in scope so as to assist the government in getting the assistance they require.

The services rendered by Tornado is majorly helpful to those who do illicit businesses. I was even thinking that services of this nature are not available on the open web. It's surprising that tornado allows such a service without a strong KYC and confirmation of the sources of this funds. I want to believe that they got what they deserved by opening such to the wild public.

It has always been about control. Governments are afraid decentralized privacy coins and mixers will give people true financial sovereignty, so they are acting in their best interests to help prevent Fiat from losing traction anytime soon. What matters is that privacy coins and mixers remain as decentralized and censorship-resistant as possible to help render governments' efforts worthless. Crypto is all about eliminating the middleman anyways. Regulations are designed to bring back the middleman with KYC and AML laws. Anything that goes against what was established in the first place will face heavy scrutiny from the government.

At least, we can feel confident that Tornado Cash won't be going anywhere thanks to the way it was designed. Sanctions may have affected the mixer's website, but the smart contracts are still living on the ETH blockchain. Even Monero has been delisted from a couple of exchanges, but that hasn't stopped it from becoming bigger and stronger than ever. Who knows if governments will ultimately give up on their task to try to take down privacy for good? Just my thoughts ;D

As long as they are associated with illegal activity, the coins will continue to come under fire from governments and exchanges alike.

That's pretty sad. But anyway, people will continue buying, mining and trading privacy coins as theyfeel great now. And it's still posible to do from any country, using no KYC decentralized exchanges, like Crypton exchange (https://crp.is).

I would not say that Monero became "stronger" after the major exchanges delisted it.
Everything is correct about control, and there are both arguments for and against complete anonymization, but the very fact that now exchanges with KYC will not list "anonymous" coins.
Now "anonymous" coins have taken their niche among other cryptocurrency projects, but due to the fact that 90-95 percent prefer to trade on large exchanges with liquidity and KYC, I don't think that tornado and similar services will be able to gain great popularity in the future. On the contrary, after the transition of ether to POS and the censorship of transactions, the space for such projects will only decrease.

There are not many places online where you can remain fully anonymous. Does it really provide full anonymity like everyone is talking about?

I can't agree with you.. Privacy coins are getting only stronger and centralization of crypto, all the sanctions and bans makes more hype around privacy and no kyc gets more needed. So I believe this niche will blast in the nearest time.

Of course. Popularity for privacy coins and mixer protocols may decline, but that doesn't mean it's the end of the world. What will keep these tools afloat is their decentralized and censorship-resistant design. Governments may try their best to take them down, but they won't be able to succeed if the project they're targeting is decentralized. I don't think privacy will disappear just like that, especially when there's still a considerable amount of people who don't like the idea of government surveillance. Tornado.Cash was sanctioned by the US, but that hasn't stopped developers from launching a copy of it under a different name to help protect user's privacy.

Regulations may become fierce over time, but they will never be able to restrict people's ability to gain financial privacy for good. As long as the whole thing doesn't turn centralized, there should be nothing to worry about. Just my thoughts ;D

Of course, decentralized projects come with their own tradeoffs: they can be slower to develop and interact with. But Decentralisation is the best solution to handle emergency situations—such as declin­ing sales, cutting costs, using resources productively, pushing a competitor to the wall, handle policy changes of government etc.

In free world, people including citizens and genius developers will build up good things to serve the people. Governments always run behind their citizens and I don't worry that developers will not be able to develop new things for the world.

In the past, things like Bitcoin or cryptocurrency did not exist and talking about 'having your own bank' is something like unrealistic. After all, we have Bitcoin, blockchain technology, decentralized network and we are free to choose storing our money in our own banks or storing it in central banks and live with abundant fear and uncertainty.

Regulations will be launched more and become stricter but those things won't stop citizens to look from true freedom financially.

That's why so many die-hard people accuse open source philosophy of being supposedly “communist” in nature: they’re crazy afraid of true competition, used as they are to government subsidies and protectionist policies.

We owe it all to Satoshi for making Bitcoin a completely open source project. If he wouldn't had made it that way, none of this (NFTs, privacy coins, mixer protocols, etc) would've been possible today. Developers can now freely fork Bitcoin's code to create new blockchain networks with specific purposes/applications. Even in restrictive countries like China and Russia, there's nothing stopping developers from secretly making a contribution to the crypto/Blockchain space. The power of decentralization and open source would set us on a future were no single government or central bank will be able to dictate what we do with our lives.

I don't think it'll ever be the end of privacy because someone will always find a way to circumvent government censorship. Especially now when we have crypto/Blockchain tech. Tornado Cash has already been forked, so this is the first step towards a brighter future for all. Just my thoughts ;D

It's true that there are still exchanges that are still listed and the government can't do anything with them, they can order certain exchanges to take them down but they can't dictate everything.

Governments can't do anything directly to the project but they can always target exchanges to take them down or create laws restricting users from owning as any crypto starts to get regulated. Privacy coins may continue to exist but there is no guarantee that users will continue to use them as the government itself will do whatever it takes to restrict users from acquiring these kinds of tokens.

if it's truly 100% decentralized, any sanction won't affect it because anyone can still use it. The price of privacy coins is based on demand and supply, so since the sanctions are primarily focused on privacy coins, it may drop the price due to panic and reduced demand. IMO holding privacy coins long term is not a good option as government always enforce KYC submission which will eliminate privacy issues.

It might be risky to invest in them right now, but privacy coins are not going away. They will likely go mainstream at some point, just as Bitcoin has. After all, privacy coins are just like any other crypto, just with an added layer of security and privacy.

Governments know the easiest way to get into crypto with Fiat are centralized exchanges, so they're doing everything they can to prevent as much people from obtaining true financial freedom. You can see why there's KYC all over the place, making the crypto industry no different than traditional banking. It's very hard these days to buy or sell crypto without KYC due to the number of limitations introduced by mainstream governments. There are so many obstacles that the average person would prefer to give away his/her privacy to join the revolution.

Truly-decentralized and privacy-oriented projects are often a target of governments, as they want to stay in control/power no matter what. The US started with the Blender mixer and now it has escalated to the Tornado.Cash mixing protocol. What makes you think privacy coins won't be next? Other countries usually copy the US' footsteps, so things could only get worse in the long run. That's what we get when we want institutional investors and VCs to join the revolution. Don't expect regulations to soften anytime soon. Who knows what the future holds for crypto/Blockchain tech? Just my opinion :)

I think after the downfall of many giant projects like Luna and FTX, the government, especially the US, will be more strict towards the cryptosphere, including DEXs and privacy coins. It will be more difficult for them to breathe. The government sees this as an urgent matter, and I believe more people will agree. This is a conundrum: on the one hand, we want to achieve decentralization, but on the other, we are suffering from a lack of regulation. I don't know how we can meet in the middle.

You're absolutely right that 100% decentralization will help to keep and exchange all the banned coins and that's exactly why there's no sense panicking. And the privacy coins market will remain safe if all the holders will understand that. But the news about its regulation appeared not only yesterday and as we can see, privacy coins still feel good enough and continue to grow.

The future remains uncertain for privacy coins given the government's desire to crack down on the cryptocurrency sector. Additionally, their unique features make it easier for cyber criminals to potentially use them in malicious ways.

It's hard to deny that investing in crypto assets with diverse use cases can only be good for the crypto community as a whole. There are potential benefits not only to personal financial health through diversification and hedging, but also increased awareness and widespread adoption of decentralized systems.

Privacy coins have a chance to become the norm in the future if people start buying more privacy – cash. Why? Because what you do with your money isn't the government's business, it's getting you out of the system. Being your own bank means you earn your own interest on your money. We are entering a new era where people will stop caring about privacy, but I think it will be a while before we get there.

Governments will now have the perfect excuse to ban privacy coins and mixer protocols by saying they need to prevent scammers and/or other malicious actors from "harming" the industry. With the FTX collapse, I'd expect governments to become more aggressive against crypto/Blockchain tech. While I believe privacy coins and mixers will survive, not many people will use them due to fear of getting caught by the government (which could lead to fines, or even imprisonment). That's what we get when we try to bring Wall Street into the decentralized world of crypto. Things were much better for Bitcoin and crypto in the early days than what they are right now (there was less centralization and KYC wasn't mandatory across centralized exchanges).

The more scandals occur on the crypto/Blockchain industry, the less freedom/privacy people will have in the future. The US government started with the Blender mixer, and now it sanctioned the Tornado.Cash mixer protocol. But I don't think it won't stop there as it will try to escalate towards privacy coins, and even decentralized exchanges. Unless people stand strong against governments' actions, we won't be able to achieve any progress on freedom/privacy anytime soon. Just my thoughts ;D