24th August 2023 > > Tornado Cash.

tl;dr

Tornado Cash again, and lessons for the less enlightened.

Market Snap

Market Wrap

According to Glassnode, short-term holders have an average acquisition price of $28.6k. Over 88% of short-term holders are now underwater, and increasingly those coins are moving to centralised exchanges, presumably to sell at a loss. These speculative and weak hands will provide a difficult price barrier for BTC to cross, until they have largely capitulated into strong hands. This happened during the last quarter of 2022 at much lower prices, and on a grander scale. Nonetheless, the upwards progress of bull markets is always interrupted by bouts of profit-taking, and more damagingly, by realising losses incurred by speculators.

When we reach $29k again, that will be a sign that this round of capitulation is over.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Tornado Cash

On Monday, in response to a court ruling that the US government’s sanctioning of crypto mixer Tornado Cash was lawful, the CCC commented that:

“This news demonstrates that the US government, issuer of the currency overwhelmingly used for money laundering in physical and digital form, is perfectly capable of penalising the misuse of crypto assets.”

Right on cue, the FBI read this piece and took it as approval to start enforcement action by arresting Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm just yesterday, whilst adding co-founder Roman Semenov to a list of individuals sanctioned from doing business with US persons.

The CCC team of researchers are delighted that our influence extends to the upper echelons of law-enforcement in the US, though I fear that the FBI misunderstood our commentary.

Money launderers are feral scumbags that facilitate real-world crimes, including stealing current account savings owned by grannies struggling on the state pension. Money launderers are feral scumbags that facilitate the plethora of scams and malicious activities that darken the corridors that will eventually lead us into the light of a decentralised economy. I wish the FBI and all other law enforcement agencies all the best in tracking down and penalising these individuals.

But this cohort of feral scumbags does not include the two Romans above.

…

All technology can be used for good or ill.

Writing a piece of code that is then used for nefarious purposes is not the fault nor the responsibility of the creator of that piece of code. For one very simple reason.

If we go down that path, all technological innovation stops dead.

All scientific curiosity stops dead.

The only long-term and reliable solution to not using fossil fuels – nuclear fusion – can never become a reality.

The dark forces of centralisation demonstrably at work in the arrest and sanctioning of these two individuals do not yet comprehend the destruction they will have wrought upon us if they get their way.