Ari Redbord, Head of Legal and Government Affairs at TRM Labs, talks about the sanctions on Tornado Cash, and the role of blockchain analytics tools in crypto. 

 

Show highlights:

• Ari’s background as a federal prosecutor and his work for the US Treasury
• why regulators sanctioned Tornado Cash, according to Ari
• why the Ronin hack was important for regulators to start taking DeFi hacks more seriously
• the fact that for the first time the Treasury Department sanctioned software
• whether the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) messed up
• whether regulators understood the impact on regular users
• the role of TRM and blockchain analytics tools in mitigating risk
• how decentralized applications use tools like the ones provided by TRM to comply with regulations and to block addresses
• why, if Ari were a regulator, he would focus on regulation guidance
• whether the sanctions on Tornado Cash are unconstitutional
• what the future of privacy in crypto looks like and whether the government is going after privacy technologies

 

Thank you to our sponsors!

 

1inch: https://1inch.io/

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Ari

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ARedbord

 

Tornado Cash

• Treasury Press release: 
• https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0916#:~:text=WASHINGTON%20%E2%80%93%20Today%2C%20the%20U.S.%20Department,since%20its%20creation%20in%202019
• Tornado Cash Sanctioned: https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/08/08/crypto-mixing-service-tornado-cash-blacklisted-by-us-treasury/
• Developer arrested: https://www.fiod.nl/arrest-of-suspected-developer-of-tornado-cash/
• TRM Labs blog post: 
• https://www.trmlabs.com/post/how-defi-platforms-are-using-data-from-trm-labs-to-respond-to-tornado-cash-sanctions
• Tornado Cash post on compliance: https://tornado-cash.medium.com/tornado-cash-compliance-9abbf254a370
• Coin Center’s article authored by Jerry Brito and Peter Van Valkenburgh: https://www.coincenter.org/u-s-treasury-sanction-of-privacy-tools-places-sweeping-restrictions-on-all-americans/
• Second Coin Center article authored by Jerry Brito and Peter Van Valkenburgh: https://www.coincenter.org/analysis-what-is-and-what-is-not-a-sanctionable-entity-in-the-tornado-cash-case/
• Coin Center may challenge the US Treasury's decision to sanction Tornado Cash: https://decrypt.co/107475/coin-center-tornado-cash-ban-court
• Circle freezes USDC in sanctioned wallets: https://www.theblock.co/post/162172/circle-freezes-usdc-funds-in-tornado-cashs-us-treasury-sanctioned-wallets 
• Crypto exchange dYdX blocked accounts that received funds from Tornado Cash: https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/08/11/crypto-exchange-dydx-blocked-accounts-that-received-even-small-amounts-from-tornado-cash/
• The possibility of forking Tornado Cash: https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/08/10/cloning-tornado-cash-would-be-easy-but-risky/
• What the sanctions mean for privacy coins: https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/08/09/what-the-tornado-cash-sanction-means-for-privacy-coins/
• Tornado Cash laundered $1.5 billion, according to Elliptic: https://hub.elliptic.co/analysis/tornado-cash-mixer-sanctioned-after-laundering-over-1-5-billion/
• Celebrities get Dusted: https://decrypt.co/es/107090/tornado-cash-dusts-public-wallets-jimmy-fallon-brian-armstrong-steve-aoki-logan-paul
• Previous Coverage of Unchained:
• Tornado Cash Sanctioned. Did the Government Overstep Its Bounds?: https://unchainedpodcast.com/tornado-cash-sanctioned-did-the-government-overstep-its-bounds-ep-384/
• The Chopping Block: Did OFAC Overstep by Sanctioning Tornado Cash?: https://unchainedpodcast.com/the-chopping-block-did-ofac-overstep-by-sanctioning-tornado-cash-ep-386/

 ** For more episode links and details visit the Unchained website **

 

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