It’s more like you gave away a DIY laundromat kit for free, which some people used to make laundromats, and other people used to launder money.

Example of a “legitimate” use case for tumbling: your employer pays you in Bitcoin and you don’t want them to know where you spend the money they give you.

A public ledger means anyone can read it, not just the government. And so anonymizing your transactions means hiding them from everyone, not just the government.

It’s fine if you believe the government and your bank should be able to read your transactions. But what about your crazy ex girlfriend or the guy you fired last week?

If you don't want your transactions to be public, don't use a public ledger. You don't get to launder your money because you chose to use a ridiculous tool that made your transactions public and readable by anybody who has ever transacted with you or who can convince someone who did to tell them who you are.

Tornado Cash wasn't free, there was a fee which as I understand it was sent back to various developers.

Money laundering doesn't get to be something else and totally fine just because it's covering for a weakness of cryptocurrencies.

Crazy amount of misinformation in this one post:

> If you don't want your transactions to be public, don't use a public ledger.

That's exactly what people were attempting to do, with Tornado.

> You don't get to launder your money

There is no money laundering available with Tornado, it doesn't turn an illigitimate source of funds into a legitimate one. And it also has a compliance tool to allow proof of transfer between accounts.

> Tornado Cash wasn't free, there was a fee which as I understand it was sent back to various developers.

This wasn't sent to developers. It was a fee you would pay relayers to propagate transactions on the network and was optional. You could choose to fund withdrawals with a relayer or to use funds in your own wallet.

> Money laundering

This isn't money laundering.

>Pretending that it's totally fine because it's "privacy" not money laundering because crypto is special... is likewise absurd.

Privacy is definitely a legitimate use for something like Tornado Cash, what are you talking about? Hell, if someone found out what my address is and it's not in my best interest that this person knew about it, I would definitely use it just to move my funds to another address.

If you sell me a screwdriver and then I go and kill someone with it, should you be prosecuted for it?

I agree, it's like saying the developer of ransomware shouldn't get in trouble for making it if they just made it public instead of using it themselves. The fact that ransomware could be used for legal purposes(pen testing maybe?) isn't really a defense when you make it easily accessible to criminals by making it public.

> it's like saying the developer of ransomware shouldn't get in trouble for making it if they just made it public instead of using it themselves

They really shouldn't.

Neither should any other security researcher who publishes exploits.

Neither should any other developer of cryptographic technology.

Big difference between writing a report on a vulnerability and writing malware that exploits it.

is there? what's the difference?

I think there is a difference between identifying an exploit exists and making a tool that makes it easy for anyone to exploit. I think if you are releasing a tool to act on security vulnerabilities it should be done so very carefully so that it can't be easily used to commit crime.

By that reasoning, gun manufacturers are mass murderers?

What about automobile manufacturers? They kill almost as many people as guns (in the US, quick google search)

Guns and cars have legitimate uses.

Money laundering, especially running a money laundering business which does not follow certain rules, is illegal regardless if some of the usage is legitimate.

frankly, I'd prefer more money laundering and less guns in the world if I had to pick one. fewer dead kids that way.

Starting a gun manufacturing company and expecting not to get charged with a crime is a bit absurd. Pretending that it's totally fine because it's "for hunting" not "murder" because guns are special... is likewise absurd.

Having a tool to shoot someone is a right written into the US constitution. There are a variety of circumstances where you are within your rights to use this deadly force.

Tools to hide the source or destination of funds, i.e. to launder money, are not legal anywhere and explicitly illegal in various ways. Providing them as a service to others is explicitly illegal.

Building, selling, owning, and using a gun are all legal in general, only specific ways of doing those things are not.

"legal" != "legitimate". the Iraq war was legal. banks turning a profit off the 08 crash was legal. slavery was legal. The constitution was written in the dark ages by folks that thought slavery was A-OK and it's a dead document. your government (ours,I guess, if you wanted to get pedantic) sucks, dude.

You're unironically correct. I suspect you were aiming for sarcasm, but gun manufacturers being sued is an actual thing now.