[woodruffw]

You're addressing 18 USC 1956 (a)(1)(A)(i) and (a)(1)(B)(i).

I'm concerned with (a)(1)(B)(ii), which concerns reporting requirements. The kind of financial transactions that Tornado Cash enables are fundamentally incompatible with the US's Federal reporting requirements.

My understanding of the Dutch criminal code (which is not great!) is that their standard is even weaker: it is sufficient to demonstrate mere concealment, not a failure to meet particular reporting requirements.

[downandout]

At least under US law, intent is still required. Meaning that while some users of TC may have violated this law, the devs did not, nor did they knowingly aid in it or have any provable intent to do so.

I don't know what Dutch law says with regard to intent/knowing participation, but I suspect that any system of laws in a civilized country would generally require it for criminal convictions.

[woodruffw]

(B)(ii) does not require specific intent. It requires knowledge that the transaction fails to meet reporting requirements.

The intent in question is manifested in Tornado Cash's design, which doesn't pass the malfeasance smell test: you can't absolve yourself of illegality by automating the illegality.

[downandout]

The intent in question is manifested in Tornado Cash's design, which doesn't pass the malfeasance smell test: you can't absolve yourself of illegality by automating the illegality.

Given that it also has legitimate uses, I think that's a very difficult case to make. Also, with very limited exceptions, nearly all crimes in the US require intent and/or knowing participation. It's a fundamental tenet of our system. There is a reason that they aren't being prosecuted in the US, and those reasons are outlined above. Perhaps Dutch law is different enough to allow a conviction; time will tell.

I'd also point out that Apple's device encryption scheme was specifically designed so that Apple itself cannot unlock devices, which thwarts law enforcement subpoenas for assistance. They can legitimately throw their hands up in the air and say "we have no ability to help you" - and that's by design. It is not illegal to design systems in this way. It just shifts the legal liability for misuse onto the users, where it should be.

[ChrisLomont]

>Given that it also has legitimate uses,

You're not addressing the point about "(a)(1)(B)(ii), which concerns reporting requirements".

If they cannot meet US law for reporting requirements, then they are breaking the law, right?

[downandout]

No, they are not. They aren’t actively participating in the transactions, and thus have no reporting requirement. Users are not allowed to structure transactions, as it is illegal for them to do so.

[300bps]

Also, with very limited exceptions, nearly all crimes in the US require intent and/or knowing participation.

The fact that this statement is 100% completely wrong in totality is common knowledge.

I recently bought a kayak. In my state I'm required to register the kayak and have a registration sticker on it. If I was unaware of this, there is no, "Oopsie! Didn't know" defense.

This principle goes back to Roman law - ignorantia juris non excusat. You may have heard Thomas Jefferson saying the English version, "Ignorance of the law is no excuse". It's one of the favorite things for judges to say as they sentence people in criminal proceedings.

[vlovich123]

Is it “100% wrong in totality”? Mens rea (“guilty mind”) is a required element of many crimes [1]. Moreover, there’s the whole annoying concept of due process [2]:

> as due process required that the defendant have notice of the crime at issue. The Lambert decision explicitly recognized this fair notice requirement as an exception to the general rule that ignorance of the law is no defense.

I’m not saying that necessarily applies here but clearly ignorance of the law can sometimes be an excuse, no?

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea

[2] https://nccriminallaw.sog.unc.edu/ignorance-law-excuse/

[xeromal]

For someone who isn't in the know of this case, can you share some legitimate uses for Tornado Cash?

[downandout]

Sure, I used to use it. I won't explain the strategy, but I have a crypto trading bot that sometimes profits at the expense of other bots. The owners of these bots got so annoyed at this that they would blacklist the address at which my bot was, and would then track any addresses that I sent funds to from there and blacklist those in advance. TC broke this ownership chain, so they could no longer preemptively blacklist the addresses my bot operated from.

[Pils]

Couldn't you just deposit ETH in an exchange and then send it to a fresh address? Seems like a hassle to use TC for that specific use case.

[jimcsharp]

Privacy - just the general desire to participate in crypto as if it were cash, like originally intended. Right now if you aren't running a miner, you've lost that ability without tumblers.

[dfadsadsf]

Anonymity and privacy is very useful in a lot of legal use cases. One example is buying domain name without disclosing who is buying (disclosing that information may dramatically inflate price).

There are obviously workarounds without tornado cash but tornado cash is probably the cheapest option.

[psychlops]

You should read about high frequency trading sometime.

[woodruffw]

I know a little bit about HFT, and I don't have anything particularly nice to say about it. But it's more or less unrelated to the particular crime of money laundering.