Larger developments in both Tornado Cash and Samorai -Tevebog trials that took place earlier this month can set dangerous precedent for the Bitcoin and Crypto industry as a whole. De to tiltalte, der udviklede Samourai -tegnebog, en populær bitcoin -apparat, indgav en anbringende om aftale, der accepterede gebyrerne for at være en ulicenseret penge -service -forretning, mens Roman Storm, udvikler af Tornado Cash, en ethereum -smart kontrakt, der også låste økonomisk privatliv for sine brugere, blev fundet skyldig på en af tre gebyrer – som at være en ikke -indicense money -business.
The irony? Both of these companies were started after The fincen, the US institution that regulates money transfers, had provided clear guidance that services that did not Control user funds were not subject to the rules. Neither Samorai Wallet nor Tornado Cash had control over user funds. They both acted as non -adorable technologies – protocols that users could interact with, and never trust the developers with Bitcoin or ether that were transferred.
This is equivalent to a VPN (virtual private network) that is regularly used by millions of people to protect their basic user data and privacy against hackers and third parties on the Internet found guilty of operating a radio station. Yes, it makes no sense.
Doj’s Superb The southern district of New York nevertheless went on with the charges, despite having clarity on the guidance as revealed by Roman Storm’s defense attorneys during the Tornado Cash Case.
The judgments were mixed, and although the industry has expressed some relief on the results (as the worst fear of these litigation threatened to land all developers involved in prison for decades), the five or so years that appear to be expected in criminal offense for the defendants, anyway less effective. The legal consequences for other developers in the entire computer science world, not just crypto, are not yet understood or wiped out.
If the novel can be found guilty of the behavior of users of his smart contract -App – which he had no capacity to close or impose a basic filter on – so what responsibility are normal software developers now exposed?
Most strange of all has been the silence of the Trump administration, Trump, who explicitly struggled to protect self -preservation and set the table for the United States to be crypto -capital in the world. How do they expect it to happen now? Why didn’t they do anymore to stop this government’s government that was initiated by the bite’s doj? Isn’t Doj political control over SDNY?
However, one thing the administration did was to publish the report on the White House Digital Assets, a plan from President Trump’s working group in digital asset markets. It outlines over 100 regulatory and regulatory recommendations to “Promote Blockchain -Innovation in the United States.”
One subtle Pearl of Hope that week was that the document quoted Satoshi Nakamoto as the creator of Bitcoin largely, and is said by experts to lay the basis for the adoption of the Law of Clarity. This law has recently included languages that protect self -preserving and privacy conservation technology at the regulatory level.
It would be a great relief for the industry to get a more explicit statement from the Trump administration as software developers throughout the industry should start considering their options – including probably getting a solid lawyer until the legal dust settles.