6 ms·

A nice problem to have. What would HN readers spend such a windfall on? Contracting developers to work on the project seems like the obvious choice.

arghwhat 4y ago
I imagine it's a horribly stressful problem to have with significant taxation and legal work to follow to figure out what to do with it, if anything at all...
- kordlessagain 4y ago
  Like a job?
- traceroute66 4y ago
  > I imagine it's a horribly stressful problem to have with significant taxation and legal work Absolutely this ! In this day and age, the last thing you want is a large chunk of money turning up on your doorstep whose origins you cannot account for. Its bad enough when you can prove the origins and you have to provide all the audit trail documentation. Ask anyone in the financial sector who has had to deal with compliance questions landing in their Inbox about a client's source of wealth. When you can't prove the origins, well, "not a good look" as the old saying goes.
  - exikyut 4y ago
    Hmm, the sad aspect of ownerless currency. In these kinds of situations you need to be able to prove the funds didn't fall off the back of a truck, both in order to be able to use them in the present, and to viably tie them into the timeline in the long term. :/
  - SkyBelow 4y ago
    Maybe I'm being naïve and idealistic, but I would think an open source project would have a much easier time of navigating this than a private individual. Open source projects are built off of donations of both money and time. As for what is being returned, the project itself existing helps enable many businesses leading to many people becoming rich. As for expenditures, large open source projects are open with how they spend their money, so where the money ends up going is easy to see as well. There is far less ability for something nefarious to be going on for why a person is being paid.
    - msh 4y ago
      Banks want KYC information, even for donations, esp when its in these amounts.
      - nerf0 4y ago
        I don't see a problem. Of course banks want KYC, but that doesn't stop you from selling the crypto on e.g. Coinbase (also KYC'ed) and sending to your bank.
        jon-wood 4y ago
        If you deposit a quarter million dollars into your bank account out of the blue the bank are absolutely going to ask you where it came from, and "don't worry yourself with that", or even "I sold some crypto" are unlikely to be sufficient answer to avoid your account being frozen and a note sent to the relevant authorities.
        prvit 4y ago
        >or even "I sold some crypto" are unlikely to be sufficient answer to avoid your account being frozen For 99% of banks, you'd be totally wrong about that. > a note sent to the relevant authorities. This, of course, means literally nothing. Banks will "send a note" for just about any reason. This results in said authorities drowning under a mountain of millions of pointless suspicious activity reports.
        PretzelPirate 4y ago
        > If you deposit a quarter million dollars into your bank account out of the blue the bank are absolutely going to ask you where it came from, I've deposited a larger lump sum into a US bank account and was never asked where it came from. I was then able to use that money the same day to pay off a loan.
        ndaiger 4y ago
        What they actually tend to do is have someone in management call to congratulate you and invite you to discuss banking products. I know this from personal experience.
  - jaywalk 4y ago
    > In this day and age, the last thing you want is a large chunk of money turning up on your doorstep whose origins you cannot account for. If it was physical cash turning up on my physical doorstep, I certainly wouldn't mind :)
    - noirbot 4y ago
      I dunno, I feel like if I walked outside and there was just a bag of cash out there, I'd be pretty hesitant to touch it. People generally don't just "lose" large amounts of cash, and may want it back. This is almost literally the plot of the movie A Simple Plan, amusingly, and many of the same stresses apply.
- duxup 4y ago
  Yeah I can imagine how a team suddenly has to deal with money issues and the potential emotional responses/ maybe expectations or disagreements. That’s a big change for some teams possibly?
- cge 4y ago
  If this is indeed from Tornado Cash, which is OFAC-designated, to an individual in the US, as seems to be the case, then the tax implications seem like the smaller legal problem. It would appear that even if the developer doesn't touch the funds, they need to make a report within 10 days to OFAC. Honestly, this seems quite a bit like someone is trying to donate dirty money after being unable to launder it for their own use.
  - prvit 4y ago
    You believe that it is illegal to merely accept money from someone you believe to be a sanctions violator? Could you expand on that theory? It is not illegal to sell a house to a known drug dealer, and neither is it illegal to accept a donation from a drug dealer. Why do you think this situation would be different?
    - PeterisP 4y ago
      If it's interpreted as accepting money for some implied services (future or past), then that could be an issue if the law prohibits people under US jurisdiction to provide any services to them.
      - prvit 4y ago
        In this case the donor would merely be a sanctions violator, while tornado.cash is sanctioned. So the money isn't coming directly from a sanctioned entity.
        from 4y ago
        I was reading and I think 18 USC 1957 may be a problem. > Whoever, in any of the circumstances set forth in subsection (d), knowingly engages or attempts to engage in a monetary transaction in criminally derived property of a value greater than $10,000 and is derived from specified unlawful activity, shall be punished as provided in subsection (b). The withdrawal from Tornado Cash after the sanctions were imposed is the specified unlawful activity (IEEPA violation). Even if the withdrawal itself was legal (the person who withdrew the money was not a US person), the government could argue that he should have known the funds could have came from some crime, i.e: > In a prosecution for an offense under this section, the Government is not required to prove the defendant knew that the offense from which the criminally derived property was derived was specified unlawful activity.
bioemerl 4y ago
A house. If this was a donation specifically for a side project I've been working on because someone just loves the idea of it, I'd probably spend it on not working a day job so I can commit 8 hours a day to that specific side project so long as that money is available. Because it's me and I can live under my own means while I hired developer needs to be paid a fair salary, and I have a very clear way to use the money, that would be the best path forward.
captn3m0 4y ago
The Pineapple fund is quite representative of what I think would happen. KDE/Apache/LetsEncrypt/OSM/SFC/EFF
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
SilverBirch 4y ago
Probably hire some lawyers and an account to work with the IRS on justifying why it's legitimate income.

arghwhat 4y ago

I imagine it's a horribly stressful problem to have with significant taxation and legal work to follow to figure out what to do with it, if anything at all...

kordlessagain 4y ago
Like a job?
traceroute66 4y ago
> I imagine it's a horribly stressful problem to have with significant taxation and legal work Absolutely this ! In this day and age, the last thing you want is a large chunk of money turning up on your doorstep whose origins you cannot account for. Its bad enough when you can prove the origins and you have to provide all the audit trail documentation. Ask anyone in the financial sector who has had to deal with compliance questions landing in their Inbox about a client's source of wealth. When you can't prove the origins, well, "not a good look" as the old saying goes.
- exikyut 4y ago
  Hmm, the sad aspect of ownerless currency. In these kinds of situations you need to be able to prove the funds didn't fall off the back of a truck, both in order to be able to use them in the present, and to viably tie them into the timeline in the long term. :/
- SkyBelow 4y ago
  Maybe I'm being naïve and idealistic, but I would think an open source project would have a much easier time of navigating this than a private individual. Open source projects are built off of donations of both money and time. As for what is being returned, the project itself existing helps enable many businesses leading to many people becoming rich. As for expenditures, large open source projects are open with how they spend their money, so where the money ends up going is easy to see as well. There is far less ability for something nefarious to be going on for why a person is being paid.
  - msh 4y ago
    Banks want KYC information, even for donations, esp when its in these amounts.
    - nerf0 4y ago
      I don't see a problem. Of course banks want KYC, but that doesn't stop you from selling the crypto on e.g. Coinbase (also KYC'ed) and sending to your bank.
      - jon-wood 4y ago
        If you deposit a quarter million dollars into your bank account out of the blue the bank are absolutely going to ask you where it came from, and "don't worry yourself with that", or even "I sold some crypto" are unlikely to be sufficient answer to avoid your account being frozen and a note sent to the relevant authorities.
        prvit 4y ago
        >or even "I sold some crypto" are unlikely to be sufficient answer to avoid your account being frozen For 99% of banks, you'd be totally wrong about that. > a note sent to the relevant authorities. This, of course, means literally nothing. Banks will "send a note" for just about any reason. This results in said authorities drowning under a mountain of millions of pointless suspicious activity reports.
        PretzelPirate 4y ago
        > If you deposit a quarter million dollars into your bank account out of the blue the bank are absolutely going to ask you where it came from, I've deposited a larger lump sum into a US bank account and was never asked where it came from. I was then able to use that money the same day to pay off a loan.
        ndaiger 4y ago
        What they actually tend to do is have someone in management call to congratulate you and invite you to discuss banking products. I know this from personal experience.
- jaywalk 4y ago
  > In this day and age, the last thing you want is a large chunk of money turning up on your doorstep whose origins you cannot account for. If it was physical cash turning up on my physical doorstep, I certainly wouldn't mind :)
  - noirbot 4y ago
    I dunno, I feel like if I walked outside and there was just a bag of cash out there, I'd be pretty hesitant to touch it. People generally don't just "lose" large amounts of cash, and may want it back. This is almost literally the plot of the movie A Simple Plan, amusingly, and many of the same stresses apply.
duxup 4y ago
Yeah I can imagine how a team suddenly has to deal with money issues and the potential emotional responses/ maybe expectations or disagreements. That’s a big change for some teams possibly?
cge 4y ago
If this is indeed from Tornado Cash, which is OFAC-designated, to an individual in the US, as seems to be the case, then the tax implications seem like the smaller legal problem. It would appear that even if the developer doesn't touch the funds, they need to make a report within 10 days to OFAC. Honestly, this seems quite a bit like someone is trying to donate dirty money after being unable to launder it for their own use.
- prvit 4y ago
  You believe that it is illegal to merely accept money from someone you believe to be a sanctions violator? Could you expand on that theory? It is not illegal to sell a house to a known drug dealer, and neither is it illegal to accept a donation from a drug dealer. Why do you think this situation would be different?
  - PeterisP 4y ago
    If it's interpreted as accepting money for some implied services (future or past), then that could be an issue if the law prohibits people under US jurisdiction to provide any services to them.
    - prvit 4y ago
      In this case the donor would merely be a sanctions violator, while tornado.cash is sanctioned. So the money isn't coming directly from a sanctioned entity.
      - from 4y ago
        I was reading and I think 18 USC 1957 may be a problem. > Whoever, in any of the circumstances set forth in subsection (d), knowingly engages or attempts to engage in a monetary transaction in criminally derived property of a value greater than $10,000 and is derived from specified unlawful activity, shall be punished as provided in subsection (b). The withdrawal from Tornado Cash after the sanctions were imposed is the specified unlawful activity (IEEPA violation). Even if the withdrawal itself was legal (the person who withdrew the money was not a US person), the government could argue that he should have known the funds could have came from some crime, i.e: > In a prosecution for an offense under this section, the Government is not required to prove the defendant knew that the offense from which the criminally derived property was derived was specified unlawful activity.

bioemerl 4y ago

A house. If this was a donation specifically for a side project I've been working on because someone just loves the idea of it, I'd probably spend it on not working a day job so I can commit 8 hours a day to that specific side project so long as that money is available. Because it's me and I can live under my own means while I hired developer needs to be paid a fair salary, and I have a very clear way to use the money, that would be the best path forward.

captn3m0 4y ago

The Pineapple fund is quite representative of what I think would happen. KDE/Apache/LetsEncrypt/OSM/SFC/EFF

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

SilverBirch 4y ago

Probably hire some lawyers and an account to work with the IRS on justifying why it's legitimate income.