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​The ban that upset everyone and did nothing

Just because something is designed to do one thing, doesn't mean you can't use it to do another...for example:

Explaining that you plan to use a knife to prepare food at your Airbnb, doesn't mean the TSA is going to let you keep it in your carry on.

The U.S. government recently had a similar reaction to the crypto mixing service, Tornado Cash, and banned U.S. citizens from using it.

Tornado Cash is a service that makes your crypto untraceable, it's pretty much the crypto equivalent of transacting in cash.

On the surface, it's designed to be a privacy tool - in reality, it's the ideal money laundering tool.

(We wrote about it in depth, here).

So while the ban doesn't come as a total surprise, the crypto community are still pretty mad about it.

And they're making some valid points, which go a little something like this:

  1. Sure, governments can ban Tornado Cash, but they can't stop it from existing - and they certainly can't stop copycat services being created.

    Criminals don't care about breaking the law (it's literally their job), so they're going to continue using the service - business as usual.

  2. As copy cat services pop up, law abiding citizens will simply use them until they're banned and replaced by another (rinse/repeat).

...so the effect of the ban is essentially...a whole lot of nothing.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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