Are you going to jail for interacting with Tornado Cash?
Well, today we find out!
I read US Treasury's OFAC office Tornado Cash FAQ's so you don't have to:
(Note: I'm not a lawyer 🤠)
On getting money out of Tornado Cash:
You can do it!
...if you apply for an individual withdrawal license which includes furnishing provenance for your funds:
home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/…
On getting "dusted" by Tornado Cash-tarnished funds:
Technically you are still liable! And you still have to report all blocked funds to OFAC.
...but they won't delay processing your report of blocked property.
On using Tornado Cash at all:
No, absolutely not, nein, nyet, non.
On the mere mention of (whispers) *Tornado Cash* being a punishable thought crime:
It's not a thought crime!
You can:
- copy the code
- discuss it
- show it to others
- include it in written text
And...that's it.
What of course OFAC fails to address here is the sanctity of deployed Ethereum code as speech.
In other words, if I deploy credibly neutral technology that ends up being used by adversaries of the United States, OFAC is saying by omission that they can still levy sanctions.
Before you get mega upset, it's worth noting that the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has a very specific purpose and mission:
To serve America's national security and foreign policy interests.
It's an intelligence agency, not a regulator.
In other words, OFAC doesn't know or need to know about Ethereum, consumer privacy, immutable contracts.
That's not its mandate.
It knows:
North Korea bad.
Tornado Cash seem help North Korea.
Tornado Cash bad.
Me do sanction.
It's sort of like the CIA seeing that North Korea used Tornado Cash, except instead of sending SEAL Team 6 to execute an extralegal assassination of the devs, it used its mandate to freeze assets in place.
So don't get it twisted:
OFAC is only here a regulator in the Warren G sense of the word--by depriving foreign adversaries of access to U.S. (and U.S. citizens') assets.
The history of OFAC as an intelligence agency is actually fascinating, but that's for another thread.
For the full list of Tornado Cash FAQ's see here:
home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/…
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@jonwu_
this thread is for sure getting suppressed, he said to no one in particular
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