The protocol-leveled sanction on the Tornado Cash case was a devastating event for the crypto ecosystem. It opened a new era of crypto restrictions for mostly privacy-based projects zero-knowledge protocols that may be used by hackers (like Lazarus) for money laundering.
After the case of Tornado Cash, people start to worry about using mixer protocols or privacy-based projects that you can make your transactions untraceable. If we take Tornado as the example, I expect Chipmixer to experience a similar case as it is the first stop to mix Bitcoin transactions used by thousands!
The approach of crypto project show variation according to their intimacy to the regulations for crypto ecosystem. For example, not surprisingly, USDC blacklisted the wallets that initiated transactions on Tornado Cash. It is harder to initiate transactions via the wallets signed transactions on the platform because several centralized services in favor of go easy on sanctions and OFAC.
Sanctions are Hard to Embrace!
I've never had good intentions against Tether, however, the company surprised me for the second time with its approach to crypto problems. The first one was the actions to settle down the depeg FUD and the second one is that Tether ignored Treasury.
Tether already has problems with regulators. The company was accused of not holding adequate USD in the bank accounts to print stablecoin USDT as they declared. Due to this problem, Tether has been sued for several times!
When it comes to Tornado Cash occasion, Tether is on the freedom's side. Interesting but the company supports the idea the the second market adressess can be disruptive!
At that point, objectively I can say that USDC failed the test whereas Tether showed its intention to keep crypto a free space where people take their risks and act without involvement of regulators.
Tether Goes Harsh!
First of all, (can't believe I'm writing it but) Tether is right about some points that the company highlights.
Taking USDC's move as the example:
the move by USDC to blacklist Tornado Cash smart contracts was premature and might have jeopardized the work of other regulators and law enforcement agencies around the world.
It is a "premature" action, indeed. When we talk about USDC, we mean the fourth project of cryptomarket in marketcap! To prove that Circle is a regulated company, USDC accepted any risk on crypto after this sanction.
S-A-D!
Also, DAI is mentioned by Tether:
It should also be noted that DAI, an algorithmic stablecoin that accounts 36% of its reserves in USDc (around 3.4B USD) also didn’t proceed with any freeze.
Nobody talks about DAI but it is a fact, for sure. We may discuss how secure DAI by holding a third of its assets in USDC but when we focus on this event, DAI could have followed Ethereum's way.
Projects are for People!
To what extent does Circle's premature action represent crypto investors' approach?
The code is unstoppable! Example: Tornado's code is republished on Github. It means, countless number of Tornado Cash can be coded by people. If it is the case, what are these sanctions and blacklists for?
I do not think people fell safer compared to the time before the sanction. Imagine you sleep with USDC in your Legder but in the morning you are blacklisted by some companies.
This way does not comply with the ideology of crypto.
So "immature".