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Mixers never fail to astonish me. They are explicitly a product to facilitate money laundering. They are marketed as a way to wash illicit funds. And then the f

Mixers never fail to astonish me. They are explicitly a product to facilitate money laundering. They are marketed as a way to wash illicit funds. And then the folks who run them get mad when law enforcement tries to shut them down?

cdiddy2 4y ago
They are explicitly a product for user privacy. Given that the depositor can prove the source of funds put into tornado cash via a zk-proof there is no reason that this should be shut down.
- ASalazarMX 4y ago
  > They are explicitly a product for user privacy That's the facade. In my experience, Bitcoin is still the main ecoin demanded in phishing/ransomware incidents, even when more privacy-friendly ecoins exist. A tumbler's purpose is distorting Bitcoin's public blockchain (one of its core tenets), and that's very attractive to criminals.
  - cdiddy2 4y ago
    Of course its attractive to criminals. Same reason they love cash. Doesn't mean that we should ban cash
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > Doesn't mean that we should ban cash Mixers aren’t banned. A mixer that was used to launder money by North Korea was.
      - Laaas 4y ago
        All decentralised (non-custodial) mixers could be used by North Korea. Should they all be banned?
      - cdiddy2 4y ago
        And yet US banks aren't banned https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/secret-documents-show-how-north-korea-launders-money-through-u-n1240329 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/secret-documents-show-how...
        JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > yet US banks aren't banned Banks which collect KYC and respond to criminal probes. Those that don’t absolutely get sanctioned.
    - wcfields 4y ago
      > ban cash Well, it's not banned, but over $10k USD in cash you need to fill out an IRS form 8300 [1] precisely to curb criminal use of cash. (Although I'd argue it should be upped and pegged to inflation as 10k isn't what 10k used to be.) [1] https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/form-8300-and-reporting-cash-payments-of-over-10000 https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe...
      - notch656a 4y ago
        Wouldn't filing a form 8300 be unconstitutional violation of the 5th amendment if the cash is an element of the crime of both parties? As an example, felons can't be charged with NFA violations for owning a short barrel rifle for example because registering their firearm would be self-incrimination. I believe Timothy Leary also got out of being charged with Marijuana reporting [tax] requirement because filing for the tax would self-incriminate his possession. Edit: See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haynes_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haynes_v._United_States for NFA. Thanks below for Leary.
        ccooffee 4y ago
        I have NEVER heard of any of this. Can you provide any sources? I think the 5th has been restricted enough by the courts that it literally only matters if you EXPLICITLY invoke it. (At least this is my understanding of Berghuis v. Thompkins.)
        vageli 4y ago
        Leary v United States https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/395/6/ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/395/6/
        giantg2 4y ago
        Criminals are still required to pay taxes, they just aren't required to list its source (misc entry on income form). Leary's case was won on the basis that the registering provision violated the right to not self-incriminate (and that you couldn't pay that tax without registering). Similar for the NFA case - they can't get then for the failure to register, but they can still get them for manufacturing/possessing it (especially since it was amended after the ruling).
yieldcrv 4y ago
People aren't surprised that they're trying to shut them down, the concept gets more and more resilient with every.single.enforcement.action and so the enforcement actions have to follow the law, that's what we're talking about here, in court.
georgyo 4y ago
I think it is more crazy that that are so openly breaking the law. The same is true with all the loto and gambling crypto sites. They run without any oversight and are blatantly breaking the law.
- x86x87 4y ago
  which law are they breaking? in which jurisdiction?
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > which law are they breaking? in which jurisdiction? North Korean sanctions [1]. As well as virtually every jurisdiction’s AML laws. (Specifically, American and Dutch.) [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_North_Korea https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_North_Kore...
seibelj 4y ago
VPNs are "data mixers" - by combining all your traffic with others, it becomes harder to determine who sent which packets. Honestly, why can't we just have the government know every single website we visit immediately? We all have nothing to hide
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > VPNs are "data mixers" - by combining all your traffic with others If a VPN is used to help North Korea, and the developers won’t or can’t shut it down, yes, it will be sanctioned. More broadly, speech is generally protected under U.S. law in a way financial transactions are not.
- saghm 4y ago
  "Data laundering" is not against the law though; money laundering is
  - abigail95 4y ago
    Yes, money laundering is illegal because money laundering is defined by the criminal code. Obscuring the source of a transaction is not always money laundering. My credit card would suck if everyone I did business with knew about all my present and future transactions too.
Consultant32452 4y ago
Who do you believe launders more money: all crypto mixers combined or the US intelligence community?
- null0pointer 4y ago
  Has anyone done research on whether more financial crime happens in crypto or traditional finance? I'd be interested to see the result, adjusted for market cap or daily transaction volume or whatever makes the most sense.
zionic 4y ago
>They are explicitly a product to facilitate money laundering How is HN so consistently cryptophobic? Imagine the reaction you’d get here suggesting say, E2EE is “explicitly a product for {crime}”. You’d be rightly mocked, but throw in crypto and it’s like 75% of the people here lose basic reasoning skills. I’d be less frustrated if it wasn’t so common.
- qeternity 4y ago
  No, it’s like saying E2EE encryption is designed to secure private communications between two parties, which is what it’s designed to do. Mixers are designed to facilitate money laundering. You can claim it’s for legitimate privacy, etc but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s money laundering.
  - zionic 4y ago
    Money laundering means concealing dirty cash, clean money doesn’t need to be laundered by definition. A mixer concealing the public address of clean money is not nefarious in any way and should be perfectly legal.
  - Infinitesimus 4y ago
    I have no horse in this race and pardon my nitpicking but those two phrases are not equivalent. For E2EE,you describe the base level capability: Secure message between two parties. For Mixers, you describe an act that the capability of making money hard to trace enables: Money laundering. If you applied a similar argument to E2EE (as many have and will keep doing), encrypted communications are a way for people to do illegal things away from the eyes of the law. Trade illegal items, send banned/illegal/questionable content, etc. From a pure capability standpoint, mixers, like E2EE, are a way to secure XYZ activity (Which happens to be money transfer) from prying eyes.
    - qeternity 4y ago
      TC was designed to obscure the source of funds. Obscuring the source of funds is money laundering. You're drawing a distinction between illicit and privacy-seeking transaction and I'm saying the act of obscuring the source is all that matters.
jbverschoor 4y ago
Would you like it if you pay for a burger somewhere and this person can see EVERYTHING you’ve ever did financially? Or if your employer pays you, and decides to kick you out because he doesn’t agree with some transactions you made?
- efdee 4y ago
  Then maybe don't pay using a payment system that was designed in a way that makes this one of its most prominent features?
  - throw101010 4y ago
    The system they are trying to ban solves this. It is always the same charade in which a government tells you that by banning x they will solve y. Or that by removing any form of privacy to everyone (but themselves) they will solve y. In the end they never solve it, even worse the people in charge of the surveillance (banks in this instance for money laundering) are repeatedly caught actively taking part in the laundering and they occasionally get punished by "fines" that are rarely enough to discourage them from continuing. So people want to take their privacy back now and tear down means ridiculous theatricals we call AML/KYC/KYB procedures. Obviously governments aren't happy, they are welcome to try to stop us.
  - hda2 4y ago
    or use a mixer.
max_ 4y ago
The internet never fails to astonish me. Its explicitly a product to facilitate child porn. It should be shut down.

cdiddy2 4y ago

They are explicitly a product for user privacy. Given that the depositor can prove the source of funds put into tornado cash via a zk-proof there is no reason that this should be shut down.

ASalazarMX 4y ago
> They are explicitly a product for user privacy That's the facade. In my experience, Bitcoin is still the main ecoin demanded in phishing/ransomware incidents, even when more privacy-friendly ecoins exist. A tumbler's purpose is distorting Bitcoin's public blockchain (one of its core tenets), and that's very attractive to criminals.
- cdiddy2 4y ago
  Of course its attractive to criminals. Same reason they love cash. Doesn't mean that we should ban cash
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > Doesn't mean that we should ban cash Mixers aren’t banned. A mixer that was used to launder money by North Korea was.
    - Laaas 4y ago
      All decentralised (non-custodial) mixers could be used by North Korea. Should they all be banned?
    - cdiddy2 4y ago
      And yet US banks aren't banned https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/secret-documents-show-how-north-korea-launders-money-through-u-n1240329 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/secret-documents-show-how...
      - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > yet US banks aren't banned Banks which collect KYC and respond to criminal probes. Those that don’t absolutely get sanctioned.
  - wcfields 4y ago
    > ban cash Well, it's not banned, but over $10k USD in cash you need to fill out an IRS form 8300 [1] precisely to curb criminal use of cash. (Although I'd argue it should be upped and pegged to inflation as 10k isn't what 10k used to be.) [1] https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/form-8300-and-reporting-cash-payments-of-over-10000 https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe...
    - notch656a 4y ago
      Wouldn't filing a form 8300 be unconstitutional violation of the 5th amendment if the cash is an element of the crime of both parties? As an example, felons can't be charged with NFA violations for owning a short barrel rifle for example because registering their firearm would be self-incrimination. I believe Timothy Leary also got out of being charged with Marijuana reporting [tax] requirement because filing for the tax would self-incriminate his possession. Edit: See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haynes_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haynes_v._United_States for NFA. Thanks below for Leary.
      - ccooffee 4y ago
        I have NEVER heard of any of this. Can you provide any sources? I think the 5th has been restricted enough by the courts that it literally only matters if you EXPLICITLY invoke it. (At least this is my understanding of Berghuis v. Thompkins.)
        vageli 4y ago
        Leary v United States https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/395/6/ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/395/6/
      - giantg2 4y ago
        Criminals are still required to pay taxes, they just aren't required to list its source (misc entry on income form). Leary's case was won on the basis that the registering provision violated the right to not self-incriminate (and that you couldn't pay that tax without registering). Similar for the NFA case - they can't get then for the failure to register, but they can still get them for manufacturing/possessing it (especially since it was amended after the ruling).

yieldcrv 4y ago

People aren't surprised that they're trying to shut them down, the concept gets more and more resilient with every.single.enforcement.action and so the enforcement actions have to follow the law, that's what we're talking about here, in court.

georgyo 4y ago

I think it is more crazy that that are so openly breaking the law. The same is true with all the loto and gambling crypto sites. They run without any oversight and are blatantly breaking the law.

x86x87 4y ago
which law are they breaking? in which jurisdiction?
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > which law are they breaking? in which jurisdiction? North Korean sanctions [1]. As well as virtually every jurisdiction’s AML laws. (Specifically, American and Dutch.) [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_North_Korea https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_North_Kore...

seibelj 4y ago

VPNs are "data mixers" - by combining all your traffic with others, it becomes harder to determine who sent which packets. Honestly, why can't we just have the government know every single website we visit immediately? We all have nothing to hide

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> VPNs are "data mixers" - by combining all your traffic with others If a VPN is used to help North Korea, and the developers won’t or can’t shut it down, yes, it will be sanctioned. More broadly, speech is generally protected under U.S. law in a way financial transactions are not.
saghm 4y ago
"Data laundering" is not against the law though; money laundering is
- abigail95 4y ago
  Yes, money laundering is illegal because money laundering is defined by the criminal code. Obscuring the source of a transaction is not always money laundering. My credit card would suck if everyone I did business with knew about all my present and future transactions too.

Consultant32452 4y ago

Who do you believe launders more money: all crypto mixers combined or the US intelligence community?

null0pointer 4y ago
Has anyone done research on whether more financial crime happens in crypto or traditional finance? I'd be interested to see the result, adjusted for market cap or daily transaction volume or whatever makes the most sense.

zionic 4y ago

>They are explicitly a product to facilitate money laundering How is HN so consistently cryptophobic? Imagine the reaction you’d get here suggesting say, E2EE is “explicitly a product for {crime}”. You’d be rightly mocked, but throw in crypto and it’s like 75% of the people here lose basic reasoning skills. I’d be less frustrated if it wasn’t so common.

qeternity 4y ago
No, it’s like saying E2EE encryption is designed to secure private communications between two parties, which is what it’s designed to do. Mixers are designed to facilitate money laundering. You can claim it’s for legitimate privacy, etc but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s money laundering.
- zionic 4y ago
  Money laundering means concealing dirty cash, clean money doesn’t need to be laundered by definition. A mixer concealing the public address of clean money is not nefarious in any way and should be perfectly legal.
- Infinitesimus 4y ago
  I have no horse in this race and pardon my nitpicking but those two phrases are not equivalent. For E2EE,you describe the base level capability: Secure message between two parties. For Mixers, you describe an act that the capability of making money hard to trace enables: Money laundering. If you applied a similar argument to E2EE (as many have and will keep doing), encrypted communications are a way for people to do illegal things away from the eyes of the law. Trade illegal items, send banned/illegal/questionable content, etc. From a pure capability standpoint, mixers, like E2EE, are a way to secure XYZ activity (Which happens to be money transfer) from prying eyes.
  - qeternity 4y ago
    TC was designed to obscure the source of funds. Obscuring the source of funds is money laundering. You're drawing a distinction between illicit and privacy-seeking transaction and I'm saying the act of obscuring the source is all that matters.

jbverschoor 4y ago

Would you like it if you pay for a burger somewhere and this person can see EVERYTHING you’ve ever did financially? Or if your employer pays you, and decides to kick you out because he doesn’t agree with some transactions you made?

efdee 4y ago
Then maybe don't pay using a payment system that was designed in a way that makes this one of its most prominent features?
- throw101010 4y ago
  The system they are trying to ban solves this. It is always the same charade in which a government tells you that by banning x they will solve y. Or that by removing any form of privacy to everyone (but themselves) they will solve y. In the end they never solve it, even worse the people in charge of the surveillance (banks in this instance for money laundering) are repeatedly caught actively taking part in the laundering and they occasionally get punished by "fines" that are rarely enough to discourage them from continuing. So people want to take their privacy back now and tear down means ridiculous theatricals we call AML/KYC/KYB procedures. Obviously governments aren't happy, they are welcome to try to stop us.
- hda2 4y ago
  or use a mixer.

max_ 4y ago

The internet never fails to astonish me. Its explicitly a product to facilitate child porn. It should be shut down.