> You're almost clever... Tornado is accused of being designed to facilitate money laundering and, realistically, has very little other purpose.
It does have other purposes, hiding transactions from the public, which I have used Tornado Cash for many times in the past.
> I used Tornado Cash (non-US citizen here) for hiding transactions from the public (not hiding from the government), and when I filed my taxes, I still accounted for everything that is stored there + transacted via Tornado Cash, just like I do for my bank account. Appendix contained instructions for how they could access the proof of my transactions and accounts to verify themselves.
Not sure why people think what I did should be illegal, I'm paying my taxes and declare everything just like everyone else, but somehow I shouldn't be allowed to hide my transactions from randoms on the internet?
> somehow I shouldn't be allowed to hide my transactions from randoms on the internet
You can do this. But it doesn’t come without risk.
If you kept using Tornado even after it was found Pyongyang used it to launder money, yes, you lose your money. It’s analogous to local law enforcement announcing a laundromat has been laundering money for the mafia, and then—months later–someone getting upset the clothes they dropped off have been seized. They may eventually get them back. But there is reasonable suspicion in the meantime.
1) Those are major banks. Many thousands of people have accounts with them for 100% legitimate purposes, and most of them have likely not heard that they were involved in money laundering (which, see also #2)
2) Because those are major, highly entrenched banks, they not only have the resources to ensure that stories about them engaging in bad behavior get swept under the rug (which doesn't mean "no coverage", but does mean they don't get covered as much as they might perhaps deserve), they also have the connections to make it very unlikely that they will face any kind of meaningful repercussions for this.
This is quite unfortunate, and a decidedly negative aspect of our current system. But the answer to it is not "so other companies like TornadoCash should be allowed to break the law with impunity, too!" It's "so we need to find ways to change our system so that we can genuinely hold accountable big banks and others who currently break the law with impunity."
It does have other purposes, hiding transactions from the public, which I have used Tornado Cash for many times in the past.
> I used Tornado Cash (non-US citizen here) for hiding transactions from the public (not hiding from the government), and when I filed my taxes, I still accounted for everything that is stored there + transacted via Tornado Cash, just like I do for my bank account. Appendix contained instructions for how they could access the proof of my transactions and accounts to verify themselves.
Not sure why people think what I did should be illegal, I'm paying my taxes and declare everything just like everyone else, but somehow I shouldn't be allowed to hide my transactions from randoms on the internet?