Cardano Founder Criticizes Tornado Cash Sanctions

Table of Contents

• Banning Is Dangerous Precedent: Hoskinson
• Self-Regulation In Industry

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has openly criticized the Treasury Department’s decision to ban crypto mixing tool Tornado Cash. 

Banning Is Dangerous Precedent: Hoskinson

According to Hoskinson, banning the crypto mixer by the U.S. government sets a dangerous precedent in the industry. The Cardano CEO addressed the community and other viewers through a video that was released on his official YouTube channel. In the video, Hoskinson touches upon the topic of the recent sanction imposed on Tornado Cash. Earlier this month, the U.S. Treasury placed Tornado Cash on a blacklist of entities, making it illegal for Americans to send or receive funds using the mixer tool. The allegations against the platform are that it has helped money launderers and hackers siphon away billions of dollars worth of digital assets. 

Hoskinson calls the sanction imposed on the mixer tool a direct attack on “free speech.” He says, 

​​“When we write code, it’s an expression. As long as we don’t get involved in the running and use of that code for purposes, we’re just writing it, it’s like writing a book. So, for example, you could write a book saying ‘Here’s how you make cyanide’ [or] ‘Here’s how you build a bomb,’ …You’re not telling people to go do this. Now in a free society, we generally allow people to do these types of things, and it’s deeply uncomfortable when they start saying no.”

Self-Regulation In Industry

Hoskinson has always been vocally adamant about practicing self-regulation in the crypto industry. He has even spoken about the matter at length with Congress. In the matter of the Tornado Cash sanction, Hoskinson opined that the government body is overreaching since the developer never participated in any illicit activities, nor did they advise others how to use it. He claims that the precedent being set by this motion indicates that software developers will be held accountable for how their work is interpreted and used, irrespective of how much control these developers wield in the application of their projects. 

He explained his point of view with the example of the Linux kernel developers, saying, 

“If you want to go really far in extreme, the Linux kernel developers are creating the kernel of an operating system. North Korea could take that kernel, build a proprietary operating system and use that to be an operating system of an ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile). So hypothetically, you could say the maintainers of the Linux kernel are contributing to the nuclear weapons program of North Korea.”

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