[hnthrow1010]

Are you making software that has the explicit stated purpose of facilitating illegal money laundering, like these crypto mixers openly say they do? If not, then you don't have anything to worry about from these sanctions.

[capableweb]

Tornado Cash has never been for the "explicit stated purpose of facilitating illegal money laundering" but for being able to remain private about what transactions you make on the blockchain. As long as you file your taxes correctly, it wouldn't be illegal to use services like Tornado Cash.

Plenty of people use services like that to move funds from their cold wallet to their hot one, in order to not make visible to the public how much funds they have. Again, as long as you properly file taxes, this should not be a issue.

And yeah, some people do work on privacy-preserving services that can and will be used for bad purposes. Anything involving E2E encryption is usually made for privacy reasons, is this bad enough for you to say the same thing about it? What about things that can be used to skirt copyright like youtube-dl, do they deserve the same treatment?

[tablespoon]

> Tornado Cash has never been for the "explicit stated purpose of facilitating illegal money laundering" but for being able to remain private about what transactions you make on the blockchain.

Isn't that literally what money laundering is?

> As long as you file your taxes correctly, it wouldn't be illegal to use services like Tornado Cash.

IIRC, money laundering businesses pay their taxes too (e.g. the Breaking Bad car wash pretended the drug profits came from washing cars, and paid taxes those "car washing" profits).

[carlosdp]

No? "Money laundering is the process of concealing the origin of money, obtained from *illicit* activities such as drug trafficking, corruption, embezzlement or gambling, by converting it into a legitimate source." [1]

If the funds you're shielding via something like Tornado were legitimately earned by you, it's your right to do whatever you want to protect your privacy (as long as you report the proper tax paperwork to the government, otherwise it can turn into tax evasion).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_laundering

[Jabrov]

“Are you doing anything illegal? If not, then you don’t have to worry about surveillance.”

[kevingadd]

This isn't warrantless surveillance, it's people breaking the law in the open. You can believe tornado cash should be legal but still, be realistic: Most OSS doesn't have tornado cash's risk profile

[bequanna]

Is it really this black and white?

It seems that regulators can change their position at any time. See the recent example PredictIt.

[jeffbee]

Yes, if your business engages in plainly illegal activity that relies on a letter of exemption from the relevant regulator, and if you don't abide by the terms of that letter, then the evil government might capriciously decide to shut you down.