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Unless you have a proof that the money come from illegal source can't you consider it innocent? Presumption of innocence ...

tadfisher 4y ago
That is how you land in court in a case titled *United States v $400,000 in digital currency".
- throwme_123 4y ago
  In which the main problem here is "United States", not the digital currency donation. US agencies have too many overreaching regulations like the OFAC one, together with a lot of fake regulations. The SEC was close to FTX and totally blind to the whole fraud operation that was going on. Likewise, many things in traditional finance markets (debt collaterization, etc.) are legal and regulated, but they're often nothing else but outright scams.
  - tadfisher 4y ago
    I agree with your first point, but I don't think OFAC is the problem here; civil asset forfeiture is what I was describing. In this case, it's not an obvious nor historical requirement that a charitable organization must perform AML/KYC on their donors; however, the use of Tornado gives an ambitious prosecutor the necessary pretext to seize the funds in a civil action.
    - js4ever 4y ago
      So seizing the money without any proof of it being illegal? How fair is it?
      - snapplebobapple 4y ago
        It's totally unfair, which is why it must be made completley illegal as something available for the government to do, but this is really hard to do because government is full of money grubbing authoritarians and the electorate isn't pissed enough about this generally yet to make it a bipartisan supported issue where if you support this you don't get elected (which tells us more about the reasoning ability of the electorate than anything). It's an utter travesty that your assets are guilty until proven innocent these days in the USA and that this is infecting other places such as Canada as well.
  - tadfisher 4y ago
    Some additional discussion: https://www.newamerica.org/digital-impact-governance-initiative/reports/virtual-currency-donations/other-findings/ https://www.newamerica.org/digital-impact-governance-initiat...
konart 4y ago
Breaking Bad taught me you have to be extra cautious with the US tax\finance system. Also from other source it sounds like when it comes to money it's rather "presumption of guilt" where you have to prove the source of your income is legal etc.
sangnoir 4y ago
> Unless you have a proof that the money come from illegal source can't you consider it innocent? Tornado Cash is a sanctioned entity. Author knows the money came through Tornado. That information is sufficient to potentially make accepting the donation criminal, regardless of whether the original source of funds is a privacy-conscious, legit crypto investor, or a ransomware group in North Korea.

tadfisher 4y ago

That is how you land in court in a case titled *United States v $400,000 in digital currency".

throwme_123 4y ago
In which the main problem here is "United States", not the digital currency donation. US agencies have too many overreaching regulations like the OFAC one, together with a lot of fake regulations. The SEC was close to FTX and totally blind to the whole fraud operation that was going on. Likewise, many things in traditional finance markets (debt collaterization, etc.) are legal and regulated, but they're often nothing else but outright scams.
- tadfisher 4y ago
  I agree with your first point, but I don't think OFAC is the problem here; civil asset forfeiture is what I was describing. In this case, it's not an obvious nor historical requirement that a charitable organization must perform AML/KYC on their donors; however, the use of Tornado gives an ambitious prosecutor the necessary pretext to seize the funds in a civil action.
  - js4ever 4y ago
    So seizing the money without any proof of it being illegal? How fair is it?
    - snapplebobapple 4y ago
      It's totally unfair, which is why it must be made completley illegal as something available for the government to do, but this is really hard to do because government is full of money grubbing authoritarians and the electorate isn't pissed enough about this generally yet to make it a bipartisan supported issue where if you support this you don't get elected (which tells us more about the reasoning ability of the electorate than anything). It's an utter travesty that your assets are guilty until proven innocent these days in the USA and that this is infecting other places such as Canada as well.
- tadfisher 4y ago
  Some additional discussion: https://www.newamerica.org/digital-impact-governance-initiative/reports/virtual-currency-donations/other-findings/ https://www.newamerica.org/digital-impact-governance-initiat...

konart 4y ago

Breaking Bad taught me you have to be extra cautious with the US tax\finance system. Also from other source it sounds like when it comes to money it's rather "presumption of guilt" where you have to prove the source of your income is legal etc.

sangnoir 4y ago

> Unless you have a proof that the money come from illegal source can't you consider it innocent? Tornado Cash is a sanctioned entity. Author knows the money came through Tornado. That information is sufficient to potentially make accepting the donation criminal, regardless of whether the original source of funds is a privacy-conscious, legit crypto investor, or a ransomware group in North Korea.