Geoff White

It's like going up to a vending machine, sticking your money in, getting the can out. And the vending machine has been forgotten by whichever company was meant to own it. It just runs on its own.

It's like going up to a vending machine, sticking your money in, getting the can out. And the vending machine has been forgotten by whichever company was meant to own it. It just runs on its own.

Now, this has obviously presented a lot of problems for particularly the United States government because they can see that money's gone from the stolen, the money's gone from Axie Infinity, been stolen, sent to Tornado Cash. They believe it's North Korea behind this. But, like, who do you prosecute? There's nobody behind Tornado Cash at this time. That's what they thought.

Now, this has obviously presented a lot of problems for particularly the United States government because they can see that money's gone from the stolen, the money's gone from Axie Infinity, been stolen, sent to Tornado Cash. They believe it's North Korea behind this. But, like, who do you prosecute? There's nobody behind Tornado Cash at this time. That's what they thought.

So it's like, what do we sort of do about this? So they did the next best thing, the U.S. government. They put Tornado Cash under sanctions. And Basie said, look, this mixer, this Tornado Cash mixer is working for the North Koreans, we believe, we claim.

So it's like, what do we sort of do about this? So they did the next best thing, the U.S. government. They put Tornado Cash under sanctions. And Basie said, look, this mixer, this Tornado Cash mixer is working for the North Koreans, we believe, we claim.

And therefore, anybody who interacts with this mixer and sends money to it or receives money from anybody who interacts, who's in the US, people, organizations, doesn't matter, they are breaching sanctions as well. We can't shut Tornado Cash down, but we can freeze it out by saying, you cannot interact with anybody in the US anymore.

And therefore, anybody who interacts with this mixer and sends money to it or receives money from anybody who interacts, who's in the US, people, organizations, doesn't matter, they are breaching sanctions as well. We can't shut Tornado Cash down, but we can freeze it out by saying, you cannot interact with anybody in the US anymore.

And anybody in the US who interacts with Tornado Cash, you've committed an offense and we can come after you.

And anybody in the US who interacts with Tornado Cash, you've committed an offense and we can come after you.

Yes, three people, it seems, created it. They are Andrei Pertsev, Roman Storm, and Roman Seminov. They worked for a company called PeperSec. And I think it's, as we'll get into, there's some legal proceedings around this that we have to be quite careful about. But I think it's fairly uncontroversial that they set up PeperSec and they created Tornado Cash.

Yes, three people, it seems, created it. They are Andrei Pertsev, Roman Storm, and Roman Seminov. They worked for a company called PeperSec. And I think it's, as we'll get into, there's some legal proceedings around this that we have to be quite careful about. But I think it's fairly uncontroversial that they set up PeperSec and they created Tornado Cash.

But the key thing is they created it, they say, to preserve privacy. And having created it, they got to a certain stage and said, okay, we now burn our passwords to this. We step back. We have nothing more to do with this. It's running on its own, the Tornado Cash DAO.

But the key thing is they created it, they say, to preserve privacy. And having created it, they got to a certain stage and said, okay, we now burn our passwords to this. We step back. We have nothing more to do with this. It's running on its own, the Tornado Cash DAO.

And, well, there's two sides to this. You can go on the back of what they said and what their defenders say, which is this was a privacy-preserving tool. The intention was never to enable money laundering. However, the counter-argument from the authorities, which they're making very strongly and in court, is it doesn't matter.

And, well, there's two sides to this. You can go on the back of what they said and what their defenders say, which is this was a privacy-preserving tool. The intention was never to enable money laundering. However, the counter-argument from the authorities, which they're making very strongly and in court, is it doesn't matter.

If you're going to run a money-transmitting business that's dealing with, as Tornado Cash was, hundreds of millions of dollars, you are obliged to think about money laundering. You can't just naively set the thing up and hope no criminals are going to use it. That's not how it works, buddy, you know. You have to obey money laundering laws. So we've got arguments on both sides.

If you're going to run a money-transmitting business that's dealing with, as Tornado Cash was, hundreds of millions of dollars, you are obliged to think about money laundering. You can't just naively set the thing up and hope no criminals are going to use it. That's not how it works, buddy, you know. You have to obey money laundering laws. So we've got arguments on both sides.

We've got arguments the intention was never there. We've got the argument on the other side saying it doesn't matter. You're on the hook for this if you set up these businesses. As you can tell, I'm being diplomatic about this. A, because there's legal procedures about it. B, also because I hear both sides. I do genuinely hear both sides. And that's the thing. It's a fascinating debate.

We've got arguments the intention was never there. We've got the argument on the other side saying it doesn't matter. You're on the hook for this if you set up these businesses. As you can tell, I'm being diplomatic about this. A, because there's legal procedures about it. B, also because I hear both sides. I do genuinely hear both sides. And that's the thing. It's a fascinating debate.