[kodah]

I'd really love to hear why you and other commenters are so supportive of transaction tracking.

Cash was and is still not very trackable; it's so untrackable that the IRS has to declare what events trigger tracking. Something like Tornado Cash just mixes what it's comparable to a credit card purchase down to being as trackable as cash. I don't see a problem with that.

Whether or not criminals use it is really not of concern to me. The FBI, CIA, and NSA can do their jobs just fine without transaction tracing. The fact that their jobs remain hard are also an indicator of freedom. Their jobs have already gotten quite a bit easier with the birth and success of the digital world.

[whatever1]

Nobody asked for money tracking, we just are just against money laundering at scale from the comfort of one’s couch.

[TakeBlaster16]

Again, Tornado Cash is not money laundering. It only provides transaction privacy. Here is the difference:

The result of money laundering is clean money: you can deposit it into your bank, pay taxes on it, and buy a Ferrari. That only happens if you can give the IRS a plausible explanation for how you obtained the funds legally.

Tornado Cash does not give you this plausible explanation. After using it, you still will not have clean money with an IRS-approved explanation of income. All you gain is privacy from chain analysis.

You could launder money through a restaurant or minting a NFT, since those are otherwise legal activities that could plausibly explain ending the day with more money than you started with. But Tornado Cash does not fit that description.

[whatever1]

You get clean wallets that do not have any connection with the dirty ones.

You are free to use the proceedings even if we know for a fact that the originating wallet had proceedings of illegal activities.

The crime has been washed.

[TakeBlaster16]

If you sell $160000 worth of crack for green paper bills that nobody knows are connected to drugs, you cannot buy a Ferrari. The IRS will come knocking and ask where you got the cash. First you would need to launder the money.

If you sell 100 ETH worth of crack and send it through Tornado Cash, you cannot buy a Ferrari. The IRS will come knocking and ask where you got the cash. First you would need to launder the money.

[whatever1]

You don’t have to convert your crypto to USD to transact. Anyone would accept coins from your clean wallet.

[TakeBlaster16]

You can trade your green paper USD for a Ferrari. But after you drive it home, the IRS will still come knocking, because you didn't launder your money.

You can trade your Tornado Cash ETH for a Ferrari. But after you drive it home, the IRS will still come knocking, because you didn't launder your money.

[dannyw]

Keeping transactions private is as money laundering as end-to-end-encryption is terrorism communications.

[arcticbull]

Not when your use of the service obfuscates criminal flows and the service intentionally avoids meeting its AML/KYC obligations and doing even the tiniest iota to stop criminal use. That's when it switches from a privacy venue to a money-laundering venue and the fact you're there and using it in a legal way is incidental.

[Barrin92]

>why you and other commenters are so supportive of transaction tracking

because most people aren't a fan of tax evasion, black markets or crime. The same does in fact apply to cash which is why many jurisdictions heavily restrict large cash transactions and are in the process of reducing the usage of cash or circulation of large bills.

I think the NSA, FBI and CIA being able to do their job is a good thing because I'm not too keen on making the life of money launderers any easier.