Just sent a PGP encrypted message via satellite paid for with 100% anonymous internet money probably illegal 💅

RT @theragetech: Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm his petitioning the Supreme Court to stop an order that would make him disclose his def…

Looking for a court reporter to cover the Tornado Cash trial in NYC starting April 14. Must write faster than CoinDesk and hate the Government. Paid, NY locals preferred, DMs open.

Roman Storm is petitioning the Supreme Court to stop an order that would make him disclose his defense strategy to the Government. If Roman loses this case, the US would become the first jurisdiction to enforce FATF’s excessively overreaching Recommendation 66, which would classify *any software touching cryptocurrency* as a money service business required to employ KYC/AML programs. This case is the fork in the road between money as free software to empower the people, and another Wall Street pet rock that the selected few may trade as walled-garden compliance coupons.

@post_polar_ I very strongly disagree with this. The purpose of running a node is to take control of your coins. Since the DOJ does not make use of coins - or at least that would be news to me - the only purpose of this node is to spy on ethereum users.

RT @bitcoin_bugle: It turns out the dystopian windowless building in NYC is actually just the only operating Ethereum full node https://t.c…

A lot of people approached me in the past weeks on a new regulation in Switzerland, which limits no-KYC Bitcoin transactions from 1.000 CHF per day down to 1.000 CHF per month. Turns out that the regulation is likely illegal:

Feds run nodes to spy on transactions, an indictment unsealed yesterday reveals. This is why we need privacy protocols.

@cguida6 @beeforbacon1 Having the receiver construct the tail (I assume you mean blinded paths) increases sender privacy, but doesn't really address any of the other issues. Has this been merged in the spec? Last time I checked it was still a proposal, but I'm not up to date

@_arshbot @ellipticurve @JakeBlockchain @PakoVM Great read, didnt know how the invalidation works - thank you for sharing!

Def agree re custody, though I believe that Tether on btc is likely to take over issuance on other chains (while increasing adoption overall) from a demand perspective. Re visibility, I believe the plan is to use Taproot Channels for Taproot Assets + PTLCs, which improves privacy over HTLCs and current channel architecture afaik. Analytics firms like Chainalysis offer tools for LN, though I'm not aware of any reports on effectiveness. This boils down to sender/receiver privacy on the one hand, which again PTLCs will improve upon, but also to LN's vulnerability towards global passive adversaries and the willingness/possible compulsion to self-report, similar to how censorship/surveillance is employed in TradFi. Some good reads on this are:

@markgoodw_in @theragetech

@djvalerieblove

@beeforbacon1 I think you should learn more about global passive adversaries in onion routed networks, LN's tendencies toward small worldness, and sender vs. receiver privacy guarantees. Thanks for stopping by though.

@markgoodw_in Ding dong

RT @rstormsf: My name is Roman Storm, and I am one of the founders of Tornado Cash, a non-custodial privacy protocol. I am being prosecute…

RT @theragetech: EFF backs Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm's motion to dismiss criminal charges, citing criminalization of privacy and c…

The EFF joins Roman Storm's defense 🔥 Countering the Government's previous argumentation that the Fifth Circuit's sanctions reversal on Tornado Cash was "irrelevant", the EFF finds that just like placing Tornado Cash on the OFAC sanctions list, sanctions evasion charges against Storm are a stretch of existing law, urging the court to directly dismiss the case. "If Congress wishes to pass a law that is intended to reach a tool like Tornado Cash, it can do so." If the court does not wish to dismiss the case on grounds of the reversal of sanctions, it should dismiss the case on grounds of due process, says EFF: Because the Government's argumentation is a too broad interpretation of the law, it runs the risk of criminalizing privacy software development as an expression of free speech. The court "should clearly reject the implication that any tool that allows (or supports) people having 'enhanced anonymity' is inherently suspect." The EFF additionally rejects the Government's argumentation that Storm attempted to profit from illicit activity: "The argument is akin to claiming that Visa or MasterCard would be criminally liable based solely on receiving transaction fees whenever its customers transferred money as part of some underlying criminal activity." Full story 👇