Recent cases of legal proceedings against cryptocurrency coders highlight the ongoing tensions between the U.S. government and the blockchain community. Most notably, the charges against Roman Storm and Roman Semenov for their work on the Tornado Cash protocol are a stark example of this friction.
According to the Department of Justice, the duo is accused of aiding and abetting North Korea’s Lazarus Group, which reportedly accounted for a substantial part of the illicit funds they allegedly facilitated laundering. As it seems, Storm and Semenov are embroiled in a large-scale U.S. dragnet, aiming to clamp down on North Korea’s nefarious activities.
The U.S. government’s indictment against the two developers and their associate, Alexey Pertsev, feels like a warning signal aimed at the global cryptocurrency community. Rumblings of doubt have started questioning whether the Americans are singling out these developers simply because they cannot directly tackle the elusive North Korean hackers.
On another level, the government’s action against Tornado Cash protocol feels rather futile. The smart contract will, in theory, continue to function regardless of whether Storm and Semenov are behind bars or not. Tornado Cash’s operational nature makes it oblivious to the identity of who is utilizing it; its primary function being pushing transactions out onto the blockchain.
This leads us to an intriguing philosophical question: should the developers be held accountable for the potentially dangerous machine they’ve constructed? By US regulation standards, developers are supposed to include relevant know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) protections. However, is it reasonable to blame them for not foreseeing that their code could be misused by international outlaw elements?
This is reminiscent of the case of Virgil Griffith, a former Ethereum Foundation developer imprisoned for violating U.S. sanctions. Griffith’s crime was implying that Ethereum was beyond the reach of government control, and the implications still resonate today as we see further controversial cases cropping up.
Legal bodies like Coin Center argue that writing code falls under legitimate First Amendment rights, calling us to remember there is a genuine demand for privacy in financial transactions. Labelling every dollar passing through a crypto mixer as “laundered” is an overly simplistic view that ignores the legitimate uses of blockchain technology and the inherent value of anonymity.
While understanding the potential national security implications of platforms like Tornado Cash, penalizing individuals for constructing what could be deemed as a ‘problem’ shouldn’t mean that others must forsake their right to independence.
Source: Coindesk
