Molly WhiteThe Fifth Circuit has just opined that the smart contracts that comprise the Tornado Cash cryptocurrency tumbler are "not property because they are not capable of being owned", and thus cannot be sanctioned by OFAC.
Some background on the Tornado Cash issue, and some of my thoughts on it from earlier this year: https://www.citationneeded.news/tornado-cash/
Here's the full decision: https://storage.mollywhite.net/pdfs/TornadoCash5Cir.pdf
(CourtListener/RECAP doesn't like it because PACER has a split PDF, apologies)
aeva@molly0xfff I hadn't really had cause to consider how I feel about financial privacy before. I feel nothing about little criminals using computers to do little crimes, but I feel a deep sadness that basically every purchase I make with a credit card is aggregated and sold to advertisers: a widespread practice that has caused real harm to society that we're meant to just accept for some reason.
@molly0xfff I think corporations and the ultra wealthy should be pinned like a bug though. Their hoarding of money has significant detrimental effects on everyone worldwide and because of that we all have a right to know what they have and what they're doing with it. The little money us little people are allowed to have is no consequence to anyone, and should be nobody's business. Our actual financial privacy is inverted to what it should be.
@molly0xfff someones gotta tell the "oh noo money laundering" guys about shell corporations
Howard Chu @ Symas@molly0xfff Monero preserves user privacy and has none of these gray areas. No central website from which users access the network, etc. etc...