Aug 23, 2022 05:02AM ET
By: AnalysisWatch
Charles Hoskinson, co-founder of blockchain platform Cardano, has criticized the US government for adding Tornado Cash, a mixer for obfuscating the origin and destination of cryptocurrency transactions, to a list of individuals and entities blacklisted for sanctions violations.
Recently, Tornado Cash, a decentralized protocol for private transactions on Ethereum, was pulled up by the government for facilitating the laundering of more than $7 billion in digital assets.
In a video published by Hoskinson, he said the US government's claim that software developers are responsible for how their software is used, whether they can control it or not, sets an extremely dangerous precedent.
Hoskinson said, "The protocol in developer terms that we have as developers is that when we write code, it's an expression. As long as we don't get involved in running and using that code for our purposes, we can just write it. It's like writing a book. "
Tornado Cash "Just Wrote The Code"
So, for example, you can write a book saying: "Here's how to make cyanide" [or] "Here's how to build a bomb," that kind of thing, and in most cases it's just words. "You don't tell people to go do it," he said.
"Now, in a free society, we generally let people do these kinds of things, and it's deeply uncomfortable when they start saying no."
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