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Comment by redox99 | Hacker News Reader

That's like saying knives are designed to facilitate murder.

TC is made for privacy, which either is or should be a basic right.

Without tools such as TC if I send you money, show you some POAPs[1] I own, or otherwise interact in any way with my crypto, it is fairly simple to deduce or make educated guesses of how much crypto I own, who I send it to or from, and more. This has serious implications not only for privacy, but for safety reasons too.

TC makes it so you can transfer from your cold wallet to your hot wallet, without trivially revealing what your cold wallet is (and thus your funds).

Furthermore TC also allows you to keep a receipt of these anonymous transfers, so you can in the future prove the origin of your funds or reveal such transactions.

[1] https://poap.xyz/

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> That's like saying knives are designed to facilitate murder.

There are plenty of knives that are designed to facilitate murder, and they are correspondingly regulated.

We don't regulate kitchen knives in that way, because they don't represent the same intent.

If your financial instrument leaks all of your transactions and makes you a target of criminal scrutiny, you should consider using a different instrument. Society is not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater to accomodate your public immutable ledger.

>> There are plenty of knives that are designed to facilitate murder, and they are correspondingly regulated. We don't regulate kitchen knives in that way, because they don't represent the same intent.

I'm pretty sure the majority of knives used for criminal activities are rather kitchen knifes.

Compare Tornado Cash with cash money and tell me how they are different. Being untraceable does not make it a criminal instrument or does it? Is it criminal to conceal your financial transactions from the government?

> I'm pretty sure the majority of knifes used for criminal activities are rather kitchen knifes.

Regardless of whether this is true (which it probably isn't, at least in the US), it doesn't change the intent. We regulate different things differently based on their intended use.

This should cover your second question as well. Intent is what the government cares about in this instance. And yes, it is indeed illegal to conceal your transactions from the government, at least insofar as they concern money that the government is entitled to tax or review.

Yes, it is a crime to conceal your financial transactions from the government.

It is not that straightforward, but as general statements go, you are not wrong. The issue seems to be that the government lately ( via various distributed actors ) has recently deemed some entirely legal transactions unsavory, which then banks/processors and so on deemed as risky and then those unsavory yet not illegal transactions become defacto verbotten. I hate to say it, but it really is one of those 'the tighter you grip' situations. Case in point, one few years ago, most people did not know what SDN list or OFAC is. But now more and more customers, and not just business customers seem to be aware of how expansive BSA really can be.

Do you report every cash transaction?

Case in point. Ginsu knife - not regulated. Switchblade - regulated. One is intended to slice a tomato, the other is intended for concealed carry and stabbing people (who are not a tomato).

Odd that you would bring up a tool banned in a wave of media-provoked hysteria, one so useful to the disabled that the ban has been overturned, which was never in fact intended as a weapon, isn't a very good one, and just looks cool.

Probably because banning knives is ludicrous behavior, so there aren't better examples.

So you can see for yourself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switchblade

You're right - the switchblade is an odd example. I've now learned a good bit about it from that link!

But the core point is that societies will ban things that generate more harm than benefit, be it real or perceived. This is the crux of the gun debate in America right now.

It also depends on context. You can't bring a kitchen knife on an airplane. You will get funny looks from most if you walk around outside with one, even if that isn't specifically banned, but laws evolve out of social convention, so if enough people did it, you could plausibly see it legislated. I'd bet that if you committed some other offense like public intoxication or indecent exposure, and then resisted arrest, you'd have a couple knock on charges regarding said knife.

So here's the context for TD AFAICT: crypto is a competitor to fiat currency and all the hegemony that comes with it. It is a power play, and power doesn't come for free, and often is ultimately paid for with blood. Governments aren't just going to let a new wild west open up on that without any say-so. I think crypto enthusiasts either don't understand the implications of the tech or reject them on philosophical grounds, which I sympathize with but understand that doesn't change the reality as far as every stakeholder is involved.

True, walk around with a Ginsu knife outside and you better have a chef's hat on...

I'm not sure I 100% agree with the statement "crypto is a competitor". Sometimes it's a currency, sometimes it's a commodity but at the end of the day, it's a store of value that humans own.

US dollars deposited in a bank and crypto in a wallet are owned by the same people, so it cannot be a competitor. It's just another asset class. The fact that Coinbase is a publicly traded company shows that the US government 100% accepts crypto as what I've described.

What they do care about are items and processes who's main purpose is for illegal activities. Guns are a perfect example. You want to buy and register a gun from a licensed dealer, no problem. You want to buy one from a guy in a van and scratch off the serial number, that's a problem. In the eyes of the government, Tornado Cash is too much like the guy in the van.

I, for one, am unconvinced that is a particularly valuable baby and its demise is worth getting rid of that bathwater.

Come to Scotland, we do regulate kitchen knives in the same way as we regulate knives designed as weapons.

It's actually quite challenging to find a decent pocket knife that's legal to carry here: if the blade locks in place, it's not legal. So pretty much any Leatherman or Gerber that's not one of the mini ones is out, and all the cheaper brands are the same. I've taken to carrying a Geekey[1] and a knock-off Raptor[2].

[1]: https://geekey.com/ -- although the feature being headlined is the one I'm least likely to use.

[2]: https://www.leatherman.co.uk/collections/raptor-rescue/produ..., literally a quarter of the price without the branding: https://smile.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08ZSV5644

What's wrong with Victorinox?

Nothing, I carried one from age 10.

Victorinox split their pocket knives into three categories: small, medium, and large. Only the large are comparable in size to multitools, and they all seem to have locking blades.

I'm actually pondering getting a basic medium-size pocket knife though, to complement what I'm carrying at the moment. Thank you for reminding me :).

I'm now the happy owner of a Victorinox "Walker".

> That's like saying knives are designed to facilitate murder.

There are a lot of laws banning knives of various sizes and constructions. I'm not sure you picked the example you want.

But the entire spirit of financial laws is that privacy is bad, because privacy usually can help people avoid taxes..

People going all pikachu face on this story is really weird as fuck. It was obvious this was going to happen.

In the life without crypto. The only way to achieve this is like movies in the 80s, you hand over a suitcase of cash and get whatever you need.

With the invention of paperless transaction, Government steps in and ensure every transaction record is there to show the party of the transaction. This happened, before the invention of the internet.

If you wanna fight, then you will have to undo all the legal changes.

Compare of the little loss of the privacy, and the possibility of funding the evil state like North Korea and its infamous neighbour. I would choose get rid of the evil country.

> Compare of the little loss of the privacy, and the possibility of funding the evil state like North Korea and its infamous neighbour. I would choose get rid of the evil country.

Damn, those goalposts moved like lightning. From "making it a bit harder for North Korea to get a bit of extra cash" to "abolishing the North Korean government" in a single sentence.

Financial privacy is a limited right in the US (and in most other countries), you’re not allowed to hide financial assets or transactions from the government. You can think that’s bad, but it’s unambiguously the law (the Supreme Court ruled on the constitutionality of the Bank Secrecy Act back in the 70’s.) The sanctions were entirely predictable, no one should be surprised.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/bank_secrecy_act.asp

> KEY TAKEAWAYS

> The Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) is U.S. legislation aimed at preventing criminals from using financial institutions to hide or launder money.

> The law requires financial institutions to provide documentation to regulators whenever their clients deal with suspicious cash transactions involving sums over $10,000.

> The law does not require documentation for every transaction over $10,000, but businesses must file Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Form 8300 if they receive more than $10,000 in cash from one buyer.

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