Last month, the treasure raised cash sanctions of tornado. In response, many have rekindled their requests for the Trump administration to drop the accusations against Keonne Rodriguez and William Longan Hill, the developers of the Samourai portfolio who are currently pursued in the southern district of New York.
What many seem to have lost is that the reversal of the sanctions of the Treasury for the cash of the Tornado has also revealed the position of the treasure on privacy services. And it’s not good.
The removal of Tornado Cash from the OFAC SDN list followed a cause from Tornado Cash users in a case of the Texas district court which has become known as Van Loon v. Department of the United States Treasury, in which it was argued that the software sanction was illegal and violated the right to freedom of speech.
The cause went to appeal in the fifth circuit, in which three judges established that the sanction of a software such as Tornado Cash was really illegal, since the OFAC’s SDN list was reserved for businesses, foreign citizens and properties, of which it is neither the cash of the Tornado.
The fifth circuit, in turn, ordered the Texas district court to grant the motion of the plaintiff for a partial summary judgment, which would constitute an order of the binding court according to which software as Tornado Cash cannot be sanctioned by the United States government pursuant to current sanction laws.
Now the treasure is fighting, in an attempt to avoid the judgment that would have stripped the agency of its powers to sanction an immutable privacy software, claiming that a judgment is not necessary because the tornado money was removed from the Ofac list. But without the sentence, the agency could continue to sanction a software that works as Tornado Cash and even the Tornado Cash sanction itself.
The reversal of the sanctions on the cash of the Tornado has little to do with the pursuit of the Samourai portfolio developers, since neither is accused of evasion of the sanctions.
But the criminal accusation of the Tornado Cash Developer Roman Storm is extremely important for their case, as it can constitute the previous one for the pursuit of Rodriguez and Hill, who have been accused of conspiracy to manage a transmitter of money without license and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Both Tornado portfolio and Samourai’s portfolio are purely non -foster software projects, which have long been understood exempt from the fall in anti -money laundering usually applied to banks. If Storm was declared guilty in July, the government would have a much easier moment to successfully pursue the two developers of Bitcoin.
While many hoped that the new administration would put an end to the witch hunt for the former administration on cryptocurrency developers, it seems that Trump’s treasure is equally unfavorable to the development of the privacy code.
As Coincenter pointed out at the end of last year, a pro-Crypt administration does not necessarily equate to an administration for pro-privacy and refinancial freedom. It seems that we are now witnessing what it means: while the causes are abandoned against “cryptographic casinos” such as coinbase and uniswap, privacy software developers such as Rodriguez and Hill continue to face the threat of decades in prison.
The treasure seems to think these judicial proceedings with their rigid position against the financing of terrorism and the IT crime. As the agency wrote in the announcement of the subversion of the Tornado Cash sanctions:
“The treasure is committed to the use of our authorities to expose and interrupt the ability of the cyber actors harmful to profit from their criminal activities through the exploitation of digital activities and the ecosystem of digital activities.”
In what seems to be a first one, the treasure has also issued a warning for users Privacy services, stating that “US people should pay attention before working in transactions that present these risks”.
In an e -mail that is aimed at the reversal of the penalties against the money of the Tornado, the company of Blockchain Consuliance The chain of the chain seems to echo the feeling of the treasure, writing that “organizations with exposure to [mixer] The addresses should look for a legal consultant on their answers and obligations against the Ofac. “
The messaging seems clear: although it is not officially illegal to use or manage mixing services, the treasure seems to try to keep all the options open to pursue the accusations against the people involved in privacy services in the future.
As I discussed in several printing articles of Bitcoin magazine, this position should not be a surprise and it is rather an immediate consequence of the integration of digital resources in the US regulatory paintings. The more Bitcoin becomes for the government, the more important it will be to eradicate any conduct deemed illegal or criminal.
The Treasury Secretary Scott Beesent has now supported the reversal of Tornado Cash sanctions, stating that “guaranteeing the digital activities industry from the abuse of North Korea and other illicit actors is essential to establish the leadership of the United States and ensure that the American people can benefit from financial innovation and inclusion”.
While North Korea is presumably based on financing cryptocurrencies for its operations, the overall share of illegal funds within the cryptocurrency space is minimal, located only 0.14% of all chain transactions through the chain itself.
At the same time, the reasons why people use privacy services are numerous. Since each transaction is visible in the chain, privacy services help people keep the stories of transactions and the net assets private, which in turn protects their physical safety.
While Jameson Lopp regularly highlights in his repository of physical bitcoin attacks, having information on the Bitcoin public can lead to violent domestic invasions, kidnappings and, in some cases, murder.
The continuous repression of the government on privacy services does not seem proportionate to the elimination of 0.14% of illegal actors, but it seems that the Trump administration is in a hurry to do the right thing to protect the Americans and #freesamourai.
This is a post for L0la L33TZ guests. The opinions expressed are entirely proper and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.