Tornado Cash sanctions as the beginning of the end of privacy coins?

[iamverybusyperson]

privacy coins should be unique coins but strangely they are also targeted by the government, I don't understand illegal transactions with privacy coins. Using privacy coins hides identity, but many illegal transactions using mixing services are unfair if privacy coins are subject to regulation.

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.

[asriloni]

privacy coins should be unique coins but strangely they are also targeted by the government, I don't understand illegal transactions with privacy coins. Using privacy coins hides identity, but many illegal transactions using mixing services are unfair if privacy coins are subject to regulation.

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.

[Abiky]

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

[iamverybusyperson]

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.

[Sethrey]

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.

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?

[hd49728]

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.

[zasad@]

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.

[Abiky]

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.

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

[dansus021]

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.

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

[Blawpaw]

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.

[zasad@]

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.

[Abiky]

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

[iamverybusyperson]

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.

[Sethrey]

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.

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.

[Moskalfa Goodboy]

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.

[Abiky]

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.

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

[Luffygroove]

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.

[Tessyb]

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.

[Humility4sure]

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.

[Abiky]

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.

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