So basically these laws perpetuate the status quo while consolidating power in the more evil and violent organizations that dodge these sanctions while subjugating the privacy conscious.
These organizations follow the law and are therefore easily in our control. North Korea and large criminal organizations do not and are not. It makes no sense to say that some organizations are behaving badly, so we should give up trying to regulate all organizations.
If you're really trying to argue that, you should argue that tradfi banks should be unregulated. Then you can get your money-laundering done even more cheaply than inefficient decentralized protocols can manage.
>If you're really trying to argue that, you should argue that tradfi banks should be unregulated.
Precisely, I do think tradfi banks should be unregulated, with full knowledge that will enable more efficient "money laundering" for some (of course for many of the consolidated powers that be that suck up power when the small guys are blocked, it's no different at all)
>It makes no sense to say that some organizations are behaving badly, so we should give up trying to regulate all organizations.
Blocking all users of Tornado Cash because of some organizations that behave badly is exactly the kind of logic you're impugning with your statement here. We shouldn't give up on all Tornado Cash transactions because some are bad. You contradict yourself.
That's a strange interpretation of my words. TornadoCash allows DPRK to steal from Americans and use that money. We shouldn't throw our hands up in the air and say there is nothing we can do about it. We should instead prevent anybody from transacting with funds laundered through TornadoCash via regulation. This removes DPRK's profit and affects normal people by some amount approximating 0.
This won't remove DPRK's profit and the amount of additional suffering DPRK is going to feel is a lot closer to "zero" than the American who uses Tornado Cash to firewall their hot wallet from their cold wallet.
>If nobody will accept their laundered coins, how do they profit?
I don't think there's any evidence sanctioning Tornado Cash closes off laundering options for DPRK. Washing through privacy coins come to mind as an alternative. Very easy for DPRK's government mechanism to learn while being much more a hassle for the average American who barely has time after work/kids/training etc.
>That provides no benefit to society and causes plenty of harms. Working as intended.
Privacy definitely provides benefit to society, including not letting everyone know how much money you have to spend in your cold wallet every time you spend from your hot wallet. In fact I'd argue more violence could ensue if criminals could easily discover who had large cold wallets through lack of privacy, as many would choose to simply go on targetted knee-cap breaking operations until the key is given up.
> I don't think there's any evidence sanctioning Tornado Cash closes off laundering options for DPRK
Those other methods can be shut off too. That isn't an argument to leave known laundering options available.
> Privacy definitely provides benefit to society, including not letting everyone know how much money you have to spend in your cold wallet every time you spend from your hot wallet.
Don't use technologies that have no advantages and only disadvantages. When I spend with my credit card, the merchant doesn't know how much money I have, and my transaction goes through nearly instantly with negligible energy usage.
>Those other methods can be shut off too. That isn't an argument to leave known laundering options available.
But that wasn't the argument you made. Now you're moving the goal posts. Sanctioning Tornado cash doesn't remove DPRKs profits as you claimed. I also doubt all methods can be shut off, or that it makes sense to cut off all "US Persons" just because DPRK uses it the way we don't like.
>Don't use technologies that have no advantages and only disadvantages. When I spend with my credit card, the merchant doesn't know how much money I have, and my transaction goes through nearly instantly with negligible energy usage.
When I use my credit card to buy say metal bullion online, I'm charged a huge markup if I pay with credit card. There are times when I don't want to pay the credit card markup and things like cash aren't always easily usable online. I don't even like spending crypto but I've paid for bullion with crypto online merely because it happened to be the lowest fee option for me with fast clearing. You don't know that for everyone crypto always has no advantages in their options.
How is it not? TornadoCash is used for laundering DPRK's ill-gotten gains, so we sanction it. Now anything they sent through TornadoCash is not usable. If anything else is used to launder their gains, we should sanction that too.
> When I use my credit card to buy say metal bullion online, I'm charged a huge markup if I pay with credit card.
Bitcoin does not remove the reason (fraud risk) you are charged that markup. As soon as regulations apply, everything that causes that markup to exist also applies to Bitcoin. On top of that, you have Bitcoin's high transaction costs, and completely public transactions.
You stated we removed their profit by sanctioning Tornado Cash. For one I don't think you have evidence sanctioning Tornado Cash eliminates profits of North Korea. There's also quite a few other ways, and only by moving the goal posts of saying we also shut off all those other ways of gathering profits could they be shut off. Which of course is both arguably infeasible, and not what you said.
>On top of that, you have Bitcoin's high transaction costs, and completely public transactions.
I didn't pay with bitcoin, I paid with LTC where my transaction costs a penny, plus or minus a penny.
>Bitcoin does not remove the reason (fraud risk) you are charged that markup.
That's nice that credit card premiums include fraud protection, but I'm not interested in paying for that with this vendor. It is one I very much trust, and even though I may even benefit from fraud protection I prefer not to have it. The vendor and I am in mutual agreement that I agree to give up my crypto with little chance of recourse, and I trust they will provide me the product. Sure, they may not make good and I may not have any good recourse, but the vendor and I have consensually made that agreement together with our own benefits in mind. In this case no fraud protection is a great benefit for me personally as I don't pay premiums for a service I don't want.
> You stated we removed their profit by sanctioning Tornado Cash. For one I don't think you have evidence sanctioning Tornado Cash eliminates profits of North Korea
The profit from the crypto that they stole or received as ransom payment. I thought that was very clearly implied.
> I paid with LTC where my transaction costs a penny, plus or minus a penny
That addresses one of the two problems with paying with BTC, remaining worse than tradfi payments.
> That's nice that credit card premiums include fraud protection, but I'm not interested in paying for that with this vendor. It is one I very much trust,
That's nice that you trust the vendor, but fraud costs are about whether vendor trusts you. If you pay them in stolen goods, those will be seized, and the vendor will be out bullion plus transaction costs.
>The profit from the crypto that they stole or received as ransom payment. I thought that was very clearly implied.
Tornado Cash is not the only way to launder ransom payments, so wrong again.
>That addresses one of the two problems with paying with BTC, remaining worse than tradfi payments.
Worse for some conditions, and not for others.
>That's nice that you trust the vendor, but fraud costs are about whether vendor trusts you. If you pay them in stolen goods, those will be seized, and the vendor will be out bullion plus transaction costs.
The vendor chose to charge me a lower fee for crypto than for credit. Perhaps the vendor failed to charge the appropriate amount to cover their fraud risk, but nevertheless in the transaction I found crypto advantageous. If you think they're wrong, feel free to offer your consulting services to APMEX and your expertise on selling bullion.
