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

[iamverybusyperson]

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

[Sethrey]

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.

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.

[Polkeins]

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

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.

[iamverybusyperson]

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.

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.

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

[Sethrey]

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.

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.

[Abiky]

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.

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

[iamverybusyperson]

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.

[tbct_mt2]

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.

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 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.

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

[Sethrey]

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.

[Abiky]

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.

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

[sukmo]

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.

[iamverybusyperson]

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.

[Abiky]

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.

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

[Luffygroove]

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.

[Sethrey]

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.

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.

[$anounimus$]

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.

[Abiky]

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